The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud

THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

“Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.”

“If I cannot bend the will of Heaven, I shall stir up Hell.”

FOREWORD

I am writing this book to explain how dreams can be understood. I believe this topic is important for doctors who study problems of the nervous system and mind.

When we look closely at the mind, dreams seem to be the first in a line of unusual mental states. Other examples include strong fears (phobias), persistent thoughts (obsessions), and false beliefs (delusions). Doctors often deal with these more serious conditions in their work.

Dreams might not seem as directly important for day-to-day medical treatment as these other issues. However, they are very valuable for building our theories. Dreams provide a basic model for understanding these other conditions. If we cannot explain how dream images are formed, we will struggle to understand and treat conditions like phobias, obsessions, and delusions.

This connection between dreams and other mental issues makes the study of dreams very important. But this same connection is also why this book may have some weaknesses.

You might notice some gaps or breaks in my explanation. These happen when the topic of how dreams are formed touches on bigger questions about mental illness (which doctors call psychopathology). I cannot cover all those bigger questions in this book. But I hope to address them in future versions, if I have the time and energy, and if I find more information.

The unique type of information I use to explain dream interpretation has also made writing this book difficult for me. As you read, you will see why I could not use dreams already written about in other books. I also could not use dreams collected from people I don’t know well.

My only choices were to use my own dreams or the dreams of my patients who were receiving psychoanalytic therapy. I decided not to use my patients’ dreams for this book. This is because their neurotic (anxiety-related) problems made their dreams too complicated for what I wanted to show here.

However, using my own dreams meant I had to share many private details about my own mind. This was more than I wanted to reveal. It’s also more than what is usually expected from an author who is a scientist, not a poet.

This was painful and embarrassing for me, but it was necessary. I accepted it because I wanted to present the evidence for my psychological ideas.

Of course, I was tempted to make some of these personal details less revealing. So, I sometimes left things out or changed them. However, whenever I did this, it unfortunately made my examples less effective.

I can only hope that my readers will try to understand my difficult position and be patient with me. Also, if anyone finds that some dreams described here seem to be about them, I hope they will still agree that we should allow freedom of thought – at least when it comes to our dream lives.

Freud

I THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ON THE PROBLEMS OF DREAMS

I THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ON THE PROBLEMS OF DREAMS

In this book, I will show you proof of a psychological method for understanding dreams. When we use this method, we find that every dream has a meaning. Every dream can be connected to our thoughts and experiences when we are awake.

I will also try to explain why dreams often seem so strange and confusing. From this, we can learn about the mental forces – their partnerships and their clashes – that produce dreams.

My discussion will stop there. At that point, the study of dreams leads to even bigger psychological questions. These larger questions will need different kinds of information to answer.

Current Understanding of Dreams

I will start by looking at what earlier experts wrote about dreams. I will also review what science currently understands about dream problems. I will do this now because I won’t have many chances to talk about it later in this book.

People have been interested in dreams for thousands of years. However, scientific understanding of dreams has not progressed very much. Most writers on the subject admit this. So, it doesn’t seem necessary to list specific authors who say so.

In the books and articles I list at the end of this work, you can find many thought-provoking observations. There is also a lot of interesting material about dreams. However, these writings offer little or nothing about what dreams truly are. They also do not offer final answers to any of dream’s mysteries. And, of course, even less of this limited knowledge has reached the general educated public.

Early Thinkers on Dreams

The first work that seems to treat dreams as a subject for psychology was written by Aristotle. It was called On Dreams and Dream Interpretation. Aristotle agreed that dreams have a “daemonic” nature. This means he thought they were connected to spirits, but not directly from the gods. This idea might hold a deep meaning if we could find the perfect way to translate his words.

He understood some things about dream life. For example, he noticed that dreams can turn small sensations during sleep into big ones. He gave an example: “we believe we are passing through a fire and growing hot when this or that limb is only being slightly warmed.” From this, he concluded that dreams might show a doctor the very first signs of physical changes or illnesses that are not noticeable during the day.

I haven’t had the specific knowledge, teaching, or expert help needed to fully understand Aristotle’s work on this topic in more depth.

As we know, ancient people before Aristotle did not see dreams as coming from the dreamer’s own mind. Instead, they thought dreams were messages or inspiration from the gods. These ancient thinkers already noticed two opposing views about dream life, views that we still see today.

They separated dreams into two types:

Valuable, truth-telling dreams: These were thought to be sent to warn the sleeper or predict the future.
Vain, deceptive, and pointless dreams: These were believed to be meant to mislead or cause harm.

This early, pre-scientific idea about dreams fit well with the general way ancient people saw the world. They often projected things that were only real in their minds onto the outside world, seeing them as external realities. Their view also matched the main feeling people have when they wake up and remember a dream. The dream often feels strange and different from other thoughts, as if it came from another world.

By the way, it would be wrong to think that nobody today believes dreams have a supernatural origin. Many religious and mystical writers still hold this view. They explore supernatural explanations for things that science has not yet fully explained. But even some clear-thinking people who dislike fantasy use the unexplained nature of dreams to support their religious belief in superhuman powers and their actions.

Many schools of philosophy, like the followers of the philosopher Schelling, place a high value on dream life. This reminds us of how ancient people unquestioningly believed dreams were divine. The idea that dreams can predict the future is still debated. This is because psychological explanations have not been able to account for all the dream experiences people report, even though scientists tend to reject such predictive powers.

Challenges in Studying Dreams

It is very difficult to write a history of scientific knowledge about dream problems. This is because, even though we have gained valuable knowledge in some specific areas, there has been no steady progress along any single line of thought. No solid foundation of proven results has been built for new researchers to build upon. Instead, every new writer on dreams tackles the same problems all over again, as if starting from scratch.

If I were to discuss these writers in the order they wrote, and summarize what each said about dream problems, it would be hard to give a clear overview of what we currently know about dreams. That is why I have decided to organize my discussion by topics, not by authors. When I discuss each dream problem, I will mention any existing information from other writings that might help solve it.

However, the writings on dreams are widely scattered. They also touch on many other subjects. I have not been able to cover all of this material. So, I must ask my readers to be satisfied as long as I have not missed any fundamental facts or important viewpoints.

Focus of This Book

Until recently, most writers felt they had to discuss sleep and dreams together. They usually also linked these topics to similar mental states found in psychopathology (the study of mental illness), such as hallucinations and visions. More recent work, however, tries to narrow the subject. Researchers now often pick a single question about dream life to investigate.

I believe this change in focus shows a growing belief: when dealing with such unclear subjects, understanding and agreement can only be achieved through many detailed investigations. The work I offer in this book is a detailed investigation of this kind, specifically a psychological one.

I have not spent much time on the problem of sleep itself. Sleep is mainly a problem for physiology (the study of how the body works). However, any description of sleep must include how the mind’s functioning changes during that state. Therefore, in this book, I have mostly set aside the writings that focus only on sleep.

Scientific interest in dreams themselves leads to the following questions. Some of these questions overlap:

A. How Dreams Relate to Waking Life

When people first wake up, their immediate thought is often that their dream took them to another world, even if they don’t literally believe it came from one.

The old physiologist Burdach, who gave a careful and thoughtful description of dreams, expressed this belief. He wrote that daily life, with its efforts, joys, and sorrows, is never simply replayed in dreams. Instead, he said, “the dream is rather bent on freeing us from it.” He also noted: “Even when our entire soul has been engrossed with one object, when our heart has been riven with a deep sorrow or some task has exercised all our mental powers, the dream either gives us something completely alien, or takes for its combinations only individual elements from reality, or only enters into the key of the mood we are in and symbolises reality.”

L. Strümpell, in his well-regarded study on dreams, shared a similar view. He wrote:

“The dreamer has turned away from the world of waking consciousness…”
“In dreams our memory of the ordered content of waking consciousness and its normal behaviour is as good as completely lost…”
He also described “The almost memory-less isolation of the soul in dreams from the routine content and course of waking life…”

However, most writers have believed the opposite. Haffner wrote: “At first the dream continues the waking life. Our dreams always follow the ideas present in our consciousness not long before. Meticulous observation will almost always discover a thread in which the dream links up with the experiences of the previous day.” Weygandt directly disagreed with Burdach. He stated, “for apparently it can often be observed in the great majority of dreams that, rather than freeing us from ordinary life, they lead us right back into it.” Maury put it briefly: “Nous rêvons de ce que nous avons vu, dit, désiré ou fait.” This means: “We dream of what we have seen, said, desired, or done.” In his psychology book from 1855, Jessen explained it in more detail: “The content of dreams is always more or less determined by the individual personality, by age, sex, class, level of education, mode of life and by all the events and experiences of our lives hitherto.”

Ancient thinkers also shared this idea that dream content depends on our waking lives. For example, Radestock tells a story about Xerxes, the Persian king. Xerxes was about to attack Greece. Good advice made him hesitate. But his dreams kept pushing him to go ahead with the attack. The wise old Persian dream interpreter, Artabanos, correctly told Xerxes that dream images usually contain what the dreamer is already thinking about when awake.

In the poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) by the Roman poet Lucretius, there is a passage that says:

And whatever pursuit a man is strongly devoted to, or on whatever subjects we have previously spent much time, and on which the mind has been more intent, we generally seem to encounter these same things in dreams. Lawyers seem to plead cases and draw up laws, commanders to fight and engage in battles, and so on.

The Roman statesman Cicero, in his work De Divinatione (On Divination), said something very similar to what Maury wrote much later: “And especially, the remnants of those things which we have thought about or done while awake move and stir in our minds during sleep.”

These two views about how dreams relate to waking life seem impossible to resolve. They appear to be complete opposites. So, this is a good point to mention the discussion by F. W. Hildebrandt. He believed that the unique features of dreams can only be described as “a series of opposites that build up until they seem like contradictions.”

Hildebrandt explained: “The first of these opposites is this: On one hand, dreams are strictly shut off or isolated from real life. On the other hand, waking life continually influences dreams, and dreams constantly depend on waking life.” He continued: “The dream is something completely separate from the reality we experience when awake. You could call it an existence tightly sealed off, cut off from real life by a gap that cannot be crossed. It frees us from reality, erases our normal memory of it, and puts us in another world with a completely different life story. This dream life basically has nothing to do with our real one…”

Hildebrandt then explained how, when we fall asleep, our whole self and our usual way of existing seem to disappear, “as though beneath an invisible trap-door.” Then, he said, perhaps we dream we are on a sea trip to the island of St. Helena. Our goal is to offer the imprisoned Napoleon a special Moselle wine. The former Emperor greets us very warmly. We are almost sad when waking up interrupts this interesting illusion.

But then we compare the dream to reality:

We have never been a wine seller and never wanted to be.
We have never been on a sea voyage, and St. Helena is the last place we would choose for one.
We feel no sympathy for Napoleon; instead, we have strong patriotic dislike for him.
On top of all that, the dreamer wasn’t even alive when Napoleon died on his island. So, having any personal relationship with him was impossible. Thus, the dream experience seems like something strange, inserted between two parts of our life that otherwise fit together smoothly.

“And yet,” Hildebrandt continued, “the apparent opposite is just as true. In my opinion, even with this isolation, there is still a very close relationship and connection. We can even say this: whatever the dream shows us, it gets its material from reality and from the mental life connected to this reality… No matter how strangely the dream uses this material, it can never truly break free from the real world. Its most wonderful and its most ridiculous moments must always borrow their basic ingredients either from what we have seen or sensed, or from what has already been part of our waking thoughts – in other words, from what we have already experienced, outside or inside ourselves.”

B. Dream Material and Memory in Dreams

We can accept one thing as certain: all the material that makes up the content of a dream comes from our experiences in some way. So, this material is reproduced, or remembered, in the dream. However, it would be a mistake to think that this connection between dream content and waking life will always be easy to see just by comparing the two.

Instead, we often have to search for it carefully. In many cases, the connection can stay hidden for a long time. The reason for this difficulty lies in several unique features of how our memory works in dreams. These features have been widely noticed, but so far, no one has been able to fully explain them. It will be useful to look at these characteristics in detail.

The first unique feature is this: dreams often contain material that, when we are awake later, we don’t recognize as part of our knowledge or experience. We might remember dreaming about something, but we don’t remember ever actually experiencing that thing.

This leaves us wondering where the dream got its material. We might even be tempted to believe that dreams can create things independently. Then, often after a long time, a new experience brings back the memory of the older, forgotten experience. This finally reveals the source of the dream. At that point, we have to admit that we knew and remembered something in our dream that our waking memory could not access.

Delboeuf shared a particularly impressive example of this from his own dream experience. In his dream, Delboeuf saw the yard of his house covered in snow. He found two small lizards, half-frozen and buried in the snow. Since he loved animals, he picked them up, warmed them, and put them back into a little hole in the wall where they lived. He also gave them a few leaves from a small fern growing on the wall, which he knew they liked very much. In his dream, he knew the name of this plant: Asplenium ruta muralis. The dream continued. After a pause, it returned to the lizards. To Delboeuf’s surprise, he saw two new little lizards eating the leftover ferns. Then he looked further away and saw a fifth and a sixth lizard heading towards the hole in the wall. Finally, the whole road was covered with a procession of lizards, all moving in the same direction, and so on.

When awake, Delboeuf knew the Latin names of only a few plants. Asplenium was not one of them. So, he was very surprised to find out that a fern with this name actually existed. Its correct name was Asplenium ruta muraria; the dream had changed it slightly. It seemed too unlikely to be a coincidence that the name appeared in his dream. But where his dream-knowledge of the name came from remained a mystery to him.

He had this dream in 1862. Sixteen years later, while visiting a friend, Delboeuf (who was a philosopher) noticed a small album with dried flowers. It was the kind often sold as souvenirs in Switzerland. A memory surfaced. He opened the flower album (herbarium), found the Asplenium from his dream, and recognized his own handwriting next to it, labeling the plant with its Latin name. Now he understood the connection. In 1860, two years before the lizard dream, this friend’s sister had visited Delboeuf during her honeymoon. She had the album with her, meaning to give it to her brother. Delboeuf had carefully written the Latin name next to each dried plant in the album, as a botanist dictated the names to him.

A lucky coincidence—the kind that makes this example so good to share—allowed Delboeuf to trace another part of his dream back to its forgotten source. One day in 1877, he came across an old volume of an illustrated magazine. In it, he saw a picture of the exact procession of lizards he had dreamed about in 1862. The magazine was dated 1861. Delboeuf remembered that he had subscribed to that magazine when it first came out.

The fact that dreams can use memories that are unavailable to us when we are awake is so remarkable and important for our theories. I want to emphasize this by sharing a few more examples of these ‘hypermnestic’ dreams (dreams with unusually vivid or detailed memory recall).

Here are more examples of hypermnestic dreams (dreams with unusually vivid or detailed memory recall):

Maury tells a story about a word, Mussidan, that kept popping into his head during the day. He knew it was the name of a French town, but that was all. One night, he dreamed he was talking to someone. This person said she came from Mussidan. When Maury asked where the town was, she replied that Mussidan was the main town in a French region called the Dordogne. When Maury woke up, he didn’t believe what the dream told him. But he looked it up in a geographical dictionary and found out the information was perfectly correct. In this case, the dream clearly had better knowledge than his waking mind. However, the forgotten source of this knowledge was never found.

Jessen tells a very similar story about a dream from long ago. It involves the elder Scaliger, who wrote a poem praising famous men from Verona. Jessen wrote: “A man calling himself Brugnolus appeared to [Scaliger] in a dream, complaining that he had been forgotten. Although Scaliger could not recall ever having heard anything of him, he composed lines about him all the same, and his son afterwards learned in Verona that a Brugnolus had indeed once been famous there as a critic.”

A researcher named Myers is said to have collected many such hypermnestic dreams. Unfortunately, I have not been able to access his publication. In my opinion, anyone who studies dreams will realize that this is very common. Dreams often show knowledge and memories that the waking person doesn’t believe they have. In my work as a psychoanalyst with patients who have nervous conditions (which I will discuss later), I often find myself in this situation. Several times every week, I use their dreams to prove to my patients that they actually know certain quotations, rude words, and similar things very well. They use these things in their dreams, even though they have forgotten them when awake.

I want to add one more harmless example of this kind of dream memory. In this case, it’s very easy to find the source of the knowledge that only the dream could access. A patient of mine had a long dream. In one part of it, he was in a coffee house and ordered something called a ‘Kontuszowka’. After telling me the dream, he asked what that could be, saying he had never heard the name. I was able to tell him that ‘Kontuszowka’ is a type of Polish liquor. I explained that he couldn’t have invented it in his dream because I had known the name for a long time from seeing it on posters. At first, the man didn’t believe me. A few days later, he actually went to a coffee house (making part of his dream come true). There, he noticed the name ‘Kontuszowka’ on a poster. Even more, it was on a poster at a street corner he must have passed at least twice a day for several months.

Childhood Memories in Dreams

Childhood life is another source dreams use for their material. Some of this material is not remembered or used in our waking thoughts. I will quote just a few writers who have noticed and emphasized this point:

Hildebrandt wrote: “It has already been clearly stated that dreams faithfully bring back events from the distant past to our minds. These can be quite remote and even forgotten events. Sometimes dreams do this with a marvelous power of reproduction.”

Strümpell stated: “The issue becomes even more complex when we notice how dreams sometimes pull out images of specific places, things, and people. These images appear perfectly preserved and with all their original freshness, as if dug out from under the deepest layers of later experiences that have covered our earliest youthful memories. This doesn’t just happen with impressions that we were very aware of at the time, or that had strong emotional meaning for us and now come back in a dream as pleasant memories. Instead, the deep memory of dreams also includes images of people, things, places, and experiences from our earliest years. These images might have only made a slight impression on us at the time, or had no emotional importance, or have long since lost both. As a result, both in the dream and after we wake up, they seem quite strange and unfamiliar to us until we discover their early origin.”

Volkelt wrote: “It is particularly remarkable how easily memories from childhood and youth enter dreams. The dream never gets tired of reminding us of things we stopped thinking about long ago, things that have lost all importance to us for a long time.”

Dreams have access to childhood material. Most of this material, as we know, slips through the gaps in our conscious memory. This ability of dreams leads to interesting hypermnestic dreams. I would like to share a few more examples of these.

Maury tells us that as a child, he often traveled from his hometown of Meaux to the nearby town of Trilport. His father was in charge of building a bridge there. One night, a dream took him back to Trilport and he was playing in the town streets again. A man in a kind of uniform approached him. Maury asked his name. The man introduced himself as C. and said he was a watchman at the bridge. After he woke up, Maury still doubted if this memory was true. So, he asked an old servant who had been with him since childhood if she could remember a man with that name. “Certainly,” she replied, “he was the watchman at the bridge your father was building at that time.”

Maury reports another example that was also clearly confirmed. It shows how reliable childhood memories can be when they appear in dreams. This story came from a Monsieur F. He had grown up as a child in the town of Montbrison. Twenty-five years after leaving, he decided to revisit his hometown and old family friends he hadn’t seen since. The night before he left, he dreamed he had already arrived. Near Montbrison, he met a man he didn’t recognize by sight. This man told him he was Monsieur T., a friend of his father’s. The dreamer knew that as a child he had known a man with this name, but when awake, he could no longer remember what Monsieur T. looked like. A few days later, when Monsieur F. actually arrived in Montbrison, he found the place from his dream, which he had thought was unfamiliar. There, he met a man whom he immediately recognized as the Monsieur T. from his dream. The only difference was that the real person was much older than he had appeared in the dream.

Now, I can share one of my own dreams. In this dream, an association took the place of a direct memory that needed to be recalled. In a dream, I saw a person. In the dream, I knew this person was the doctor from my hometown. His face wasn’t clear. It was mixed with the image of one of my high school (Gymnasium) teachers, whom I still see sometimes today. After I woke up, I couldn’t figure out the connection between these two people. But when I asked my mother about this doctor from my early childhood, I learned that he had only one eye. And the schoolteacher whose image in the dream had covered the doctor’s image also has only one eye. I had not seen that doctor for thirty-eight years. As far as I know, I have never thought about him in my waking life during that time.

Recent Impressions in Dreams

Some experts argue that dreams mostly contain elements from the days just before the dream. This sounds like an attempt to balance the idea that childhood memories play a very large role in dreams. Robert even claims that, in general, a normal dream is only concerned with things from the past few days. We will find out later that Robert’s theory of dreams requires him to downplay the oldest memories and emphasize the most recent ones. However, from my own research, I can confirm that what Robert says about dreams using recent material is true.

An American writer, Nelson, believes that dreams most often use impressions from the day before yesterday, or from three days before the dream. It’s as if impressions from the day immediately before the dream are too recent or not yet faded enough to be used.

Several writers agree that dreams and waking life are closely connected. They have observed that strong thoughts or worries from our waking hours usually appear in dreams only after they have been somewhat pushed aside by our daily thinking. For example, according to Delage, we generally do not dream about a loved one who has recently died while we are still overcome with grief. However, a more recent observer, Miss Hallam, has collected examples of the opposite happening. She believes that, in this respect, each person has their own unique psychological way of dreaming.

Trivial Details in Dreams

The third unique feature of memory in dreams is the most remarkable and hardest to understand. It concerns the choice of material that dreams reproduce. Unlike our waking memory, which tends to remember important things, dreams often remember the most trivial and unimportant things. I will now quote some authors who have expressed their surprise about this most strongly.

Hildebrandt wrote: “For the remarkable thing is that dreams usually take their elements not from important and major events, nor from the great and motivating interests of the previous day. Instead, they take them from trivial extras, from the worthless scraps, so to speak, of the recent or more distant past. A distressing death in the family, which might keep us awake late, is wiped from our memory in the dream until the moment we wake up, when it hits us again with all its sadness. On the other hand, a wart on the forehead of a stranger we barely noticed—that might play a part in our dream…”

Strümpell noted: “…cases where analyzing a dream uncovers elements that do come from experiences of the previous day or the day before. However, these experiences were so worthless and insignificant to our waking mind that they were forgotten soon after they happened. Examples of such experiences are words heard by accident, other people’s actions we barely noticed, brief glimpses of things or persons, short passages from our reading, and so on.”

Havelock Ellis wrote: “The deep emotions of waking life, the questions and problems on which we focus most of our conscious mental energy, are not usually what appear in our dream consciousness. When it comes to the immediate past, it is mostly the trivial, incidental, and ‘forgotten’ impressions of daily life that reappear in our dreams. The mental activities that are most intense when we are awake are the ones that sleep most deeply.”

Binz used these very same oddities of dream memory to express his dissatisfaction with the dream explanations he himself supported. He asked: “And the natural dream raises similar questions. Why do we not always dream about memories from the most recent day? Why do we often dive, for no clear reason, into a past that is far behind us and almost forgotten? In dreams, why does our consciousness so often get impressions of trivial memories, while the brain cells that store our most sensitive experiences mostly remain still and silent, unless they have been freshly activated in waking hours shortly before?”

It is easy to see why dream memory’s strange preference for trivial, unnoticed things from the day would make it hard for people to understand that dreams depend on waking life. At least, it makes it very difficult to show this connection in specific cases. As a result, in Miss Whiton Calkins’s statistical study of her own dreams and those of her companion, she found that 11 percent of all dreams had no noticeable connection to waking life.

Hildebrandt is surely right when he says that all dream images could be explained by tracing their origins, if we spent enough time and effort doing so. He did call this “an extremely laborious and thankless task.” He said it would mostly mean “tracking down all sorts of things with no psychological value in the farthest corners of memory, and bringing to light all sorts of completely trivial impulses from long ago, from depths where they might have been buried perhaps the very hour after they happened.” But I must say I regret that this insightful writer did not follow this path further from this simple starting point. It would have led him straight to the heart of understanding dreams.

Memory’s Reach in Dreams

The way memory behaves in dreams is certainly very important for any general theory of memory. It teaches us, as Scholz said, that “nothing that is once mentally our own can ever be entirely lost.” Or, as Delboeuf put it, “que toute impression même la plus insignifiante, laisse une trace inaltérable, indéfiniment susceptible de reparaître au jour.” This means “that every impression, even the most insignificant, leaves an unchangeable trace, indefinitely capable of reappearing one day.” Many other unusual mental phenomena also force us to this same conclusion.

Now, if we remember this extraordinary ability of dream memory, we will clearly see a contradiction. Some dream theories, which I will discuss later, try to explain the absurdity and confusion of dreams by saying we partially forget what we know during the day. This contradicts what we’ve just learned about dream memory.

It might occur to us to think that dreaming is simply a form of remembering. We might see the dream as just the expression of a memory process that continues working through the night, just for its own sake. Ideas like those from Pilcz would fit this view. He claims that there are clear connections between the time of night a dream occurs and its content. For example, he suggests that in deep sleep, dreams reproduce memories from very early times, but towards morning, they reproduce recent memories.

However, this idea is unlikely from the start because of the way dreams actually deal with the material they remember. Strümpell rightly points out that dreams do not simply repeat experiences. It’s true that a dream might start to repeat something, but then the next part of the memory is missing. Or it appears in a changed form, or something completely strange takes its place. The dream usually presents only fragments of memories. This is so often the case that we can use this observation in our theories.

However, there are exceptions. Sometimes a dream will repeat an experience just as completely as our waking memory can. Delboeuf tells a story about one of his university colleagues. (This colleague currently teaches in Vienna.) In a dream, this colleague perfectly relived a dangerous coach journey in all its detail. He had escaped an accident on that journey only by what seemed like a miracle. Miss Calkins mentions two dreams that were exact reproductions of an experience from the day before. I myself will later share an example I know of an unchanged childhood experience returning in a dream.

C. Dream Stimuli and Dream Sources

We can understand what dream stimuli (triggers) and dream sources mean by thinking about the popular saying, “dreams come from the stomach.” Behind these ideas is a theory. This theory sees dreams as the result of something disturbing our sleep. According to this view, we wouldn’t dream if nothing had disturbed our sleep. The dream, then, is our reaction to this disturbance.

The discussion of what causes dreams takes up more space than any other topic in writings about dreams. Of course, this question could only come up after dreams began to be studied from a biological perspective. The ancient people, who saw dreams as divine inspiration, didn’t need to look for their source. For them, dreams came from the will of gods or spirits, and their content came from the knowledge or intentions of these powers.

For science, however, the question immediately arose: Is the reason for dreaming always the same, or are there several different reasons? This also led to the question of whether the explanation for dream causes belongs to psychology or to physiology. Most experts seem to believe that there can be many kinds of causes for sleep disturbances – that is, many sources of dreams. They think that both somatic stimuli (physical triggers from the body) and psychical excitations (mental triggers) can cause dreams. However, there is a lot of disagreement about which of these dream sources is more important. Experts also disagree on how to rank them according to their importance in creating dreams.

If we list all the possible sources of dreams, we find there are ultimately four kinds. These have also been used to classify dreams:

External sensory stimuli (objective): Things we sense from the outside world (like a noise or a touch).
Internal sensory stimuli (subjective): Sensations that arise from inside our sense organs themselves (like seeing flashes of light with eyes closed, or ringing in the ears).
Internal somatic stimuli (from the body): Physical feelings coming from inside our body (like an upset stomach or a full bladder).
Purely mental sources of stimuli: Triggers that come only from our thoughts and minds.

1. External Sensory Stimuli

Strümpell the younger (son of the philosopher Strümpell whose work on dreams we have already mentioned) reported an observation. He studied a patient who had general numbness of the skin (anesthesia) and paralysis of several major sense organs. When this man’s few working senses were blocked from any signals from the outside world, he would fall asleep.

More Examples of Excellent Dream Memory

Maury tells a story about a word, “Mussidan,” that kept popping into his head during the day. He knew it was the name of a French town, but that was all. One night, he dreamed he was talking to someone. This person said she came from Mussidan. When Maury asked where the town was, she replied that Mussidan was the main town in a French region called the Dordogne. When Maury woke up, he didn’t believe what the dream told him. But he looked it up in a geographical dictionary and found out the information was perfectly correct. In this case, the dream clearly had better knowledge than his waking mind. However, the forgotten source of this knowledge was never found.

A researcher named Myers is said to have collected many such hypermnestic dreams (dreams with superior memory). Unfortunately, I have not been able to access his publication. In my opinion, anyone who studies dreams will realize that this is very common. Dreams often show knowledge and memories that the waking person doesn’t believe they have. In my work as a psychoanalyst with patients who have nervous conditions (which I will discuss later), I often find myself in this situation. Several times every week, I use their dreams to prove to my patients that they actually know certain quotations, rude words, and similar things very well. They use these things in their dreams, even though they have forgotten them when awake.

I want to add one more harmless example of this kind of dream memory. In this case, it’s very easy to find the source of the KNOWLEDGE that only the dream could access. A patient of mine had a long dream. In one part of it, he was in a coffee house and ordered something called a ‘Kontuszowka’. After telling me the dream, he asked what that could be, saying he had never heard the name. I was able to tell him that ‘Kontuszowka’ is a type of Polish liquor. I explained that he couldn’t have invented it in his dream because I had known the name for a long time from seeing it on posters. At first, the man didn’t believe me. A few days later, he actually went to a coffee house (making part of his dream come true). There, he noticed the name ‘Kontuszowka’ on a poster. Even more, it was on a poster at a street corner he must have passed at least twice a day for several months.

Childhood Memories in Dreams

Recent Impressions in Dreams

Trivial Details in Dreams

Memory’s Reach in Dreams

C. Dream Stimuli and Dream Sources

If we list all the possible sources of dreams, we find there are ultimately four kinds. These have also been used to classify dreams:

External sensory stimuli (objective): Things we sense from the outside world (like a noise or a touch).
Internal sensory stimuli (subjective): Sensations that arise from inside our sense organs themselves (like seeing flashes of light with eyes closed, or ringing in the ears).
Internal somatic stimuli (from the body): Physical feelings coming from inside our body (like an upset stomach or a full bladder).
Purely mental sources of stimuli: Triggers that come only from our thoughts and minds.

1. External Sensory Stimuli

When we want to go to sleep, we all try to create a situation similar to the one in Strümpell’s experiment with his patient. We close our most important senses, our eyes. We also try to protect our other senses from any new triggers or changes in existing ones. Then we go to sleep, though we are never completely successful in doing this. We can neither entirely block our senses from stimuli, nor completely stop them from being excitable. The fact that stronger stimuli can always wake us up proves “that even in sleep the psyche has remained in constant contact with the world external to the body.” The sensory information that reaches us during sleep could easily become sources for dreams.

Among such stimuli, there are many types. These range from unavoidable ones that are part of being asleep, or things we occasionally allow, to accidental triggers that are likely to wake us up or are intended to end sleep. For example:

A strong light can get through our eyelids.
A sound can become audible.
A smell can reach our nose.
While we sleep, we might move without meaning to. This can uncover parts of our body, making them feel cold.
Changing our sleeping position can create feelings of pressure or touch.
A fly might bite us.
A small accident at night might affect several of our senses at once.

Careful observers have collected many dreams where the trigger identified upon waking and a part of the dream’s content match so closely that the trigger could be recognized as the source of the dream.

Here is a collection of such dreams from Jessen, caused by objective—more or less accidental—sensory stimulation:

Every unclear sound causes corresponding dream images: the rumble of thunder takes us into the middle of a battle; a rooster’s crow can turn into a human cry of fear; a creaking door can bring on dreams of burglars breaking in.
If we lose our blankets at night, we might dream we are walking around naked or that we have fallen into water.
If we are lying crooked in bed with our feet sticking out, we might dream we are standing at the edge of a terrible cliff, or that we are falling from a high place.
If our head accidentally gets under the pillow, we might dream a great rock is hanging over us, about to crush us.
A buildup of semen can lead to sexual dreams.
Localized pains can lead to ideas of being abused, attacked, or injured.

Meier once dreamed that several people attacked him. They stretched him out on his back on the ground and drove a stake into the ground between his big toe and the next one. As he was imagining this in his dream, he woke up and felt a piece of straw sticking between his toes. On another occasion, according to Hennings, Meier had tied his shirt rather tightly around his neck and dreamed he was being hanged. Hoffbauer dreamed as a young man that he was falling from a high wall. When he woke up, he found that his bedframe had come apart and he really had fallen.

Gregory reported that he once put a hot-water bottle at his feet when he went to bed. He then dreamed he had traveled to the top of Mount Etna, where the heat of the ground was almost unbearable. Another person, after having a poultice (a soft, moist medical dressing) applied to his head, dreamed he was being scalped by Native Americans. A third person, who went to sleep in a damp shirt, dreamed he was being dragged through a river. An attack of gout (a painful joint condition) while asleep led one patient to believe he was in the hands of the Inquisition and was being tortured.

The argument that a stimulus causes a dream is stronger if we can systematically apply sensory stimuli and produce corresponding dreams in a sleeper. According to Macnish, Giron de Buzareingues had already tried such experiments:

He left his knee uncovered and dreamed he was traveling by mail coach at night. He noted that travelers would know how cold knees can get in a coach at night.
Another time, he left the back of his head uncovered and dreamed he was attending an outdoor religious ceremony. In the country where he lived, it was customary to keep one’s head covered, except on such occasions.

Maury reported new observations of dreams he himself had produced by experiment. (Another series of his experiments did not work.)

He was tickled on the lips and tip of the nose with a feather. He dreamed of a terrible torture: a mask made of pitch (a thick, dark, sticky substance) was placed on his face, then torn away, taking the skin with it.
A pair of scissors was sharpened against a pair of tweezers. He heard bells ringing, then warning bells (like an alarm), and was transported to the June Days of 1848 (a period of uprising in France).
He smelled eau de Cologne (a type of perfume). He dreamed he was in Cairo, in the shop of Johann Maria Farina (a famous perfume maker). This was followed by wild adventures that he couldn’t remember later.
He was squeezed gently in the neck. He dreamed he was having a poultice applied and thought of a doctor who had treated him in childhood.
A hot iron was held near his face. He dreamed of “stokers” (men who tended fires, often associated with criminals who tortured victims with heat) who had crept into the house. They were forcing the residents to hand over their money by thrusting their feet into a brazier (a portable heater with hot coals). Then the Duchess of Abrantés, whose secretary he was in the dream, appeared.
A drop of water was poured onto his forehead. He dreamed he was in Italy, sweating heavily and drinking the white wine of Orvieto.
The light from a candle, filtered through red paper, was repeatedly shone on him. He dreamed of storms and heat, and found himself once again in a storm at sea that he had once experienced in the English Channel.

Other attempts to create dreams experimentally were made by d’Hervey, Weygandt, and others.

Many have noticed the “striking skill of the dream in weaving sudden impressions from the sensory world into its creations.” Hildebrandt observed that dreams do this in such a way that these impressions “come to form a catastrophe whose onset has already been gradually prepared and ushered in.” He relates: “When I was younger, in order to get up regularly at a certain hour in the morning, I sometimes used the familiar alarm usually attached to clocks. It must have happened a hundred times that the sound of this alarm fitted into an apparently very long and coherent dream, as if the whole dream were directed towards it as its logically indispensable point and natural goal.”

I will refer to three more of these alarm-clock dreams in another section.

Volkelt tells this story: “A composer once dreamed that he was teaching a class and wanted to make something clear to his pupils. He had just done so and turned to one of the boys with the question: ‘Did you understand me?’ The boy shouted like a madman ‘O ja’ [‘Oh yes’]. Annoyed at the shouting, he reprimanded the boy. But the whole class was already shouting ‘Orja’. Then: ‘Eurjo’. And finally ‘Feuerjo!’ [‘Fire! Fire!’]. And then he was awakened by real cries of ‘Fire! Fire!’ in the street.”

Garnier, quoted by Radestock, reports that Napoleon I was awakened from a dream while sleeping in his carriage by the explosion of an “infernal machine” (an improvised explosive device). In the dream, he had relived crossing the Tagliamento River and the Austrian bombardment, until he woke with a start, crying: “We have been undermined (attacked with explosives)!”

A dream Maury once had has become famous. He was unwell and lying in bed in his room. His mother was sitting beside him. He dreamed of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. He took part in dreadful scenes of murder and was finally brought before the court himself. There he saw Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier-Tinville, and all the grim heroes of that terrible time. He addressed them. After many events that he couldn’t recall, he was condemned. Then, accompanied by an enormous crowd, he was led to the place of execution. He climbed the scaffold, and the executioner fastened him to the plank. It tipped up; the guillotine blade fell. He felt his head being severed from his body. He woke up in a terrible state of fear—and discovered that the headboard of the bed had collapsed and, just like a guillotine blade, had struck the back of his neck.

This dream led to an interesting discussion in a philosophical journal, started by Le Lorrain and Egger. They debated whether it was possible for a dreamer to fit such an apparently full and detailed dream into the brief moment between the stimulus that wakes them and the act of waking up.

Examples like these make objective sensory stimuli seem to be the most solidly established sources of dreams. Such stimuli are also the only ones that most non-experts think about. If you ask an educated person who doesn’t know much about dream literature how dreams happen, they will likely refer to a case they heard of, where a dream was explained by an objective sensory stimulus that was recognized after waking.

Scientific inquiry cannot stop there. It leads to further questions: Why does a stimulus affecting our senses during sleep appear in the dream not in its true form, but as some other imagined idea that has some kind of relationship to it? But the relationship linking the dream stimulus and the dream it produces is, in Maury’s words, “une affinité quelconque, mais qui n’est pas unique et exclusive.” This means “some kind of connection, but one that is not unique or exclusive” (p. 72).

Take, for example, Hildebrandt’s three alarm-clock dreams. We must ask why the same stimulus produced such different dreams, and why exactly these dreams resulted from it.

Hildebrandt describes them (p. 37):

“So I am taking a walk one spring morning and strolling through the early green of the fields as far as a neighbouring village. There I see a crowd of villagers in their best clothes, their hymn-books under their arms, making their way in droves towards the church. Of course! It is Sunday, and morning service is due to begin soon. I decide to take part, but first, because I am rather hot and out of breath, I decide to cool off in the churchyard that surrounds the church. While I am reading some of the inscriptions on the gravestones there, I hear the bell-ringer climb the tower, and then see the little village bell at the top which will give the signal for the service to begin. For a while it still hangs there motionless, then it begins to swing—and suddenly its strokes ring out loud and clear—so loud and clear that it puts an end to my sleep. But the sound of the bell comes from the alarm-clock.”
“A second connection. It is a bright winter’s day. The streets are deep with snow. I have agreed to take part in a sleigh-ride, but I have to wait a long time before the message comes that the sleigh is standing at the door. There follow the preparations for getting in—the fur rug is spread out, the foot-muff brought out—and at last I am sitting in my seat. But the departure is still delayed until the reins let the waiting horses feel the signal to start. Then the horses move off. The sleigh-bells, vigorously shaken, strike up their familiar janissary music (a type of Turkish military band music) with such force that in a moment the cobweb of the dream is torn apart. Again it is nothing but the shrill tone of the alarm-clock.”
“Now a third example! I see a kitchen-maid walking along the corridor to the dining-room carrying several dozen plates piled up. The column of china in her arms seems to me to be in danger of toppling over. ‘Take care’, I warn her, ‘the whole load is going to fall.’ The usual contradiction is, of course, forthcoming: she is used to carrying such things, etc., while I still follow her progress with concern. Sure enough, at the threshold she stumbles—the fragile crockery falls and clatters and shatters in a hundred pieces over the floor. But—the endlessly unceasing sound is, as I soon notice, not really a clattering, but a proper ringing;—and, as I now recognize as I wake, the ringing is only the alarm-clock doing its duty.”

The question of why the mind in a dream fails to recognize the true nature of the objective sensory stimulus has been answered by Strümpell—and in a very similar way by Wundt. They suggest that stimuli affecting the mind during sleep create conditions that allow illusions to form. We recognize and correctly interpret a sensory impression (meaning we place it in the memory category where it belongs based on all our past experience) if the impression is strong, clear, and long-lasting enough, and if we have enough time to think about it. If these conditions are not met, we fail to recognize the object causing the impression. Instead, we use it as the basis for an illusion. “If someone goes for a walk in the open country and perceives a distant object indistinctly, it can happen that at first he takes it to be a horse.” Looking more closely, he might then think it’s a cow lying down, until finally, he sees clearly that it’s a group of seated people. The impressions the mind receives during sleep from external stimuli are similarly vague. The mind uses these stimuli to create illusions because the impression calls up a number of remembered images, through which it gains its psychological importance. Strümpell himself thought it was impossible to determine which memories would be triggered, or which associative connections would come into play; he saw it as being left up to the mind’s arbitrary will.

We have a choice here.

We can admit that the laws governing how dreams are formed cannot really be studied further. So, we would stop asking whether our interpretation of the illusion caused by the sensory impression might be determined by other factors.
Or, we can speculate that the objective sensory stimulus affecting sleep plays only a small part as a source for dreams. We might then think that other factors determine which images from our stored memories are chosen to be awakened.

In fact, if we look at Maury’s experimentally produced dreams—which I have described in such detail for this very reason—we are tempted to say that the experiment really only explains the origin of one element of the dream. The rest of the dream’s content seems too independent and too specific in its details to be explained only by the need to be consistent with the experimentally introduced element. Indeed, one even begins to doubt the illusion theory and the power of the objective impression to shape the dream when one learns that sometimes in a dream, the stimulus is interpreted in the strangest, most far-fetched ways. For example, M. Simon tells of a dream in which he saw gigantic figures seated at a table and clearly heard the fearful gnashing of their jaws as they chewed. When he woke, he heard the hoofbeats of a horse galloping past his window. If, in this case, the sound of horses’ hooves brought up ideas from memories of Gulliver’s Travels—of stays with the giants of Brobdingnag and the virtuous Houyhnhnms (horse-like creatures)—as I would be inclined to interpret it (though the author provides no support for this)—wouldn’t the choice of this memory, so distant from the stimulus, have been more easily explained by different factors?

2. Internal (Subjective) Sensory Stimuli

Despite all the objections, we have to admit that the role played by objective sensory stimuli during sleep in starting dreams is undeniable. And if the nature and frequency of these stimuli seem perhaps not enough to explain every dream image, this suggests we should look for other sources of dreams. These other sources would be different from external stimuli but have a similar effect.

I do not know where the idea first came from to include internal (subjective) excitations of the sensory organs as dream sources, in addition to external sensory stimuli. But this is, in fact, done in all more recent explanations of what causes dreams. Wundt says: “In the production of dream-illusions, I believe an essential role is played by those subjective visual and aural perceptions familiar to us when we are awake, such as dazzling light on a dark field of vision, ringing or buzzing in the ears, etc., among them especially subjective excitations of the retina (the light-sensitive part of the eye). This would explain the remarkable tendency of the dream to conjure up large numbers of similar or wholly identical objects before our eyes. We see countless birds, butterflies, fishes, many-coloured beads, flowers, and the like spread out before us: here the scattered light of the dark field of vision has assumed fantastic shapes, and the numerous particles of light which go to make it up are embodied by the dream in as many individual images. Because the shimmering light is so mobile, these are perceived as moving objects.”

Wundt also suggested this might be why dreams so often include a variety of animal figures. The creative shapes of these dream animals can easily adapt to the particular patterns of these subjective light images.

Subjective sensory stimuli have a clear advantage as a source of dream images. Unlike objective (external) stimuli, they don’t depend on random outside events. They are always available, so to speak, whenever we need them for an explanation of a dream. However, they are a less convincing explanation than objective sensory stimuli. This is because it’s difficult or impossible to confirm their role in starting dreams through observation and experiment, as we can with objective stimuli.

The main proof that subjective sensory stimuli can cause dreams comes from what are called hypnagogic hallucinations. Johann Müller described these as “fantastic visual phenomena.” These are images that often appear when we are falling asleep. They are usually very vivid and keep changing. Many people experience them quite regularly. These images can even continue for a short time after we open our eyes.

Maury, who experienced these a lot, studied them in detail. He believed they are related to, and in fact identical to, dream images. Müller also held this view. For these images to appear, Maury said, a certain mental calmness and a relaxation of attention are needed. But if we are in the right mood, even a second of this drowsy state is enough for a hypnagogic hallucination to appear. After this, we might wake up a little. This process might repeat several times until we finally fall asleep.

According to Maury, if we then wake up again after a short time, we can often confirm that we experienced the same image in our dream that we saw as a hypnagogic hallucination just before falling asleep. This happened to Maury once. While falling asleep, he had a hallucination of several grotesque figures with distorted faces and strange hairstyles. They bothered him relentlessly. After he woke up, he remembered that he had also dreamed about these same figures.

Another time, when Maury was on a diet and feeling hungry, he had a hypnagogic vision of a dish of food. He also saw a hand holding a fork, taking some of the food from the dish. In his dream that followed, he found himself at a table full of food and heard the sounds of people eating with their forks. On another occasion, he had fallen asleep with sore and painful eyes. He then had a hypnagogic hallucination of tiny signs that he had to strain to read one by one. An hour after he woke up, he remembered a dream where there was an open book with very small letters, which he had to read through with great effort.

Just like these visual images, hypnagogic auditory hallucinations can also occur. These are experiences of hearing words, names, or other sounds while falling asleep. These sounds can then be repeated in dreams. They act like an overture to an opera, announcing the main themes that will appear in the dream that follows.

A more recent observer, G. Trumbull Ladd, followed the same line of research as Johann Müller and Maury regarding hypnagogic hallucinations. Through practice, Ladd learned to wake himself up suddenly, two to five minutes after slowly falling asleep, but without opening his eyes. This allowed him to compare the fading sensations on his retina (the light-sensitive part at the back of the eye) with the dream images that remained in his memory.

He confirmed that there was a close relationship between the two every time. The glowing dots and lines of the retina’s own light seemed to create the basic outline or diagram for the figures seen in the dream. For example, he had a dream in which he saw clearly printed lines in front of him, which he read and studied. This dream matched a pattern of parallel lines of glowing dots on his retina. As Ladd himself described it, the clearly printed page he read in his dream turned into something that, to his waking perception, looked like part of a real printed page viewed through a small hole in a piece of paper, from too far away to see clearly.

Ladd believed this phenomenon was very important in other ways too. He thought that hardly any dream happens without depending on material from these inner excitations of the retina. He said this is especially true for dreams that occur shortly after falling asleep in a dark room. For morning dreams, when we are close to waking up, he suggested that real light coming into our eyes from the brightened room provides the stimulus. The way these light excitations in the retina constantly change and shift matches perfectly with the restless flow of images that our dreams show us.

If we consider Ladd’s observations to be important, we cannot doubt that this subjective source of stimulus is very productive in creating dreams. After all, as we know, visual images are the main part of our dreams. The contributions from our other senses, apart from sight and hearing, are smaller and less consistent.

3. Internal Somatic Stimuli (from the Body)

We are still looking for dream sources that come from inside the body, not outside. We should remember that when our internal organs are healthy, we hardly notice them. But when they are irritated or when we are ill, they can become a source of sensations, mostly painful ones. These internal sensations must be considered just as important as external things that cause pain or other feelings.

This is a very old idea. For example, it prompted Strümpell to say: “In sleep, the mind becomes much more deeply and widely aware of its physical body than it is when awake. It cannot help but receive and be affected by certain stimuli coming from parts of the body and changes in them, which it was unaware of during waking hours.”

Even a very early writer like Aristotle stated that dreams might well draw our attention to the early signs of illnesses. He thought dreams could do this because they magnify impressions, making us notice traces of illness we hadn’t seen when awake. Many medical writers, even those who were far from believing that dreams could predict the future, have agreed that dreams can at least be important as early warnings of illness.

There seem to be many well-documented cases from more recent times where dreams have successfully helped in diagnosing illnesses. For example, Tissié (referencing the work of Artigues) tells the story of a 43-year-old woman. For several years, while she seemed to be in perfect health, she suffered from anxiety dreams. Later, a medical examination revealed she had an early-stage heart condition, and she soon died from it.

Serious illnesses of the internal organs clearly trigger dreams in many people. It has been widely noticed that people with heart or lung diseases often have anxiety dreams. Indeed, many authors have highlighted this connection so much that I only need to refer you to their writings on the subject (such as Radestock, Spitta, Maury, M. Simon, and Tissié).

Tissié even believes that diseased organs give a particular character to the content of dreams. For example, the dreams of someone with a heart condition are usually very short. They often end with the person waking up in terror. Situations involving death under frightening circumstances almost always play a part in these dreams. People with lung diseases often dream of suffocation, being in crowds, and trying to escape. A surprising number of them suffer from the familiar nightmare. (A researcher named Börner was able to cause similar nightmares experimentally by having people lie on their faces with their breathing restricted.) Indigestion causes dreams that include ideas related to enjoyment and disgust. Finally, the influence of sexual arousal on dream content is something everyone can understand from their own experience. This provides the strongest support for the whole theory that dreams are started by stimuli from the body.

As we review the writings about dreams, it also becomes clear that some authors, like Maury and Weygandt, became interested in dream problems because their own illnesses influenced the content of their dreams.

However, even though these facts about illness causing dreams are well established and add to the list of dream sources, this is not as important as one might think. After all, dreams happen to healthy people too—perhaps to everyone, every night. So, physical illness is clearly not an essential requirement for dreaming. But for us, the main question is not where unusual dreams come from. Instead, we want to know what causes the ordinary dreams of normal people.

From here, it takes only one more step to find a dream source that is much more plentiful than any we have discussed so far. This source truly shows no sign of ever running out. We have established that the inside of the body, when sick, can be a source of dream stimuli. We also accept that when we are asleep and not focused on the outside world, our mind can pay more attention to the inside of our body. If both these things are true, then it’s reasonable to think that our organs don’t have to be sick for them to send signals—signals that somehow turn into dream images—to our sleeping mind.

What we vaguely sense when we are awake is a general vital sense—an overall feeling of being alive that doctors believe comes from all our organ systems working together. At night, when this vital sense is working strongly and its individual parts are active, it could provide the strongest and most common source for triggering dream images and ideas.

Here, we have arrived at the theory about how dreams begin that has become the favorite one among all medical writers. The mystery that hides the core of our being from our own knowledge—what Tissié called the ‘moi splanchnique’ (the ‘gut-self’ or instinctual core)—and the mystery of where dreams come from seem to fit together too well not to be connected.

The line of thinking that makes the automatic (vegetative) sensations from our organs the creators of dreams has another appeal for doctors. It allows us to connect the causes of dreams with the causes of mental disturbances, since both often show similar features. This is because changes in the general vital sense and in the stimuli coming from internal organs are also considered very important in how psychoses (severe mental disorders) begin. So, it is not surprising that this theory of physical stimulation causing dreams can be traced back to more than one original thinker who proposed it independently.

The ideas developed by the philosopher Schopenhauer in 1851 have become very influential for a number of writers. Schopenhauer believed that our understanding of the world is formed when our intellect takes impressions from the outside and reshapes them into the forms of time, space, and cause-and-effect. During the day, stimuli from inside our body, carried by the sympathetic nervous system, mostly have only an unconscious influence on our mood. At night, however, when the loud impressions of the day have stopped, these internal impressions can finally get our attention. It’s like how at night we can hear a quiet stream flowing, which was drowned out by the noise of the day. But how else can our intellect react to these internal stimuli except by doing its main job? It will transform these stimuli into figures that exist in space and time and are connected by cause-and-effect. And that is how dreams are created. Based on this idea, Scherner, and later Volkelt, tried to explore more deeply the relationship between physical stimuli and dream images. However, we will save a discussion of their work for the section on dream theories.

In a very thorough investigation, the psychiatrist Krauss argued that dreams, as well as hallucinations and delusions, all originate from the same thing: sensations caused by physical processes within the body. In his view, almost any part of the body could become the starting point for a dream or a delusion. Krauss divided these sensations caused by the body into two groups:

Sensations related to our overall mood or feeling (general vital feelings).
Specific sensations arising from the main systems of our body’s automatic (vegetative) functions. He distinguished five types here: (a) muscular sensations, (b) respiratory (breathing) sensations, (c) gastric (stomach) sensations, (d) sexual sensations, and (e) peripheral (outer body, like skin) sensations.

Krauss believed that dream images are formed from physical stimuli in the following way: A sensation from the body is awakened. Through some law of association, this sensation brings up an imagined idea related to it. The sensation and the idea then combine to form an “organic formation” (a complete unit). However, our consciousness reacts to this differently than it normally does. It doesn’t pay attention to the sensation itself. Instead, it focuses entirely on the imagined ideas that accompany the sensation. This, Krauss suggested, is why this fact was not recognized for so long. Krauss also created a special term for this process: the transubstantiation of sensations into dream images (meaning the sensations are transformed into the substance of dream images).

Today, almost everyone accepts that physical stimuli from the body influence how dreams are formed. However, the question of what laws control the relationship between these stimuli and the resulting dreams receives very different and often unclear answers. Therefore, when dream interpretation is based on the theory of physical stimuli, its main task is to trace the dream’s content back to the physical stimulus that caused it. If we don’t accept the interpretation rules created by Scherner, we often face an awkward problem: the only way the physical source of the stimulus seems to reveal itself is through the very content of the dream.

However, there is some agreement on how to interpret various types of dreams that are called ‘typical’ dreams. These are dreams that many people experience with very similar content. These include the familiar dreams of:

Falling from a height.
Teeth falling out.
Flying.
Being embarrassed because you are naked or not dressed properly.

The dream of being naked is thought to come simply from our awareness during sleep that we have kicked off the bedclothes and are now uncovered. The dream of teeth falling out is said to be caused by “tooth sensitivity”—though this doesn’t necessarily mean the stimulus comes from having bad teeth. According to Strümpell, the dream of flying is the image the mind uses to interpret the sensations from the lungs rising and falling, at a time when the feeling from the skin on the chest has faded from consciousness. This loss of skin sensation is responsible for the feeling associated with the idea of floating. The dream of falling from a height is thought to be caused by this: as we lose awareness of skin pressure, we might let an arm drop or suddenly straighten a bent knee. When this happens, we become aware of skin pressure again. This shift back to awareness is represented in the mind as the dream of falling, according to Strümpell.

The weakness of these believable explanations is clear. They assume, without giving further reasons, that certain groups of bodily sensations can just disappear from our mental awareness or suddenly force themselves upon it, until the situation perfectly fits the explanation. By the way, I will have a chance to discuss typical dreams and how they are formed again later.

By comparing many similar dreams, M. Simon has tried to figure out some rules for how physical stimuli from the body influence the dreams that follow. According to him, here is one rule: If a part of the body that is normally involved in expressing an emotion (an affect) is aroused during sleep by some other cause—putting it into the same state of arousal that the emotion usually causes—then the resulting dream will contain imagined ideas that fit that emotion. Here is another rule from Simon: If, during sleep, a part of the body is active, aroused, or disturbed, the dream will include imagined ideas related to the normal function that part of the body performs.

Mourly Void conducted experiments in one specific area to demonstrate the influence of physical stimuli on dream creation, as suggested by the theory of physical stimulus. He did this by changing the position of a sleeper’s arms or legs and then comparing the dreams that followed with the changes he had made. He reported his findings as follows:

The position of an arm or leg in a dream roughly matches its actual position in reality. That is, we dream of the limb being still in a position that matches its real one.
If we dream of an arm or leg moving, one of the positions it takes during that dream movement always matches its actual position.
In a dream, we can also imagine that the position of our own arm or leg actually belongs to another person.
We can also dream that the movement we are trying to make is blocked or hindered.

Here are further observations on dream sources:

The position of the arm or leg can also appear in the dream as an animal or a monster. This creates a kind of comparison between the limb and the creature.
In the dream, the position of an arm or leg can bring up thoughts that have some sort of connection with that limb. For example, if fingers are involved, we might dream of numbers.

From results like these, I would conclude that even the theory of physical stimuli cannot completely take away our seeming freedom in deciding which dream images are brought to mind.

4. Mental Sources of Stimuli (from the Psyche)

When we discussed the connections between dreams and waking life, and where dream material comes from, we found something interesting. Both the earliest and the most recent investigators of dreams believed that people dream about what they do during the day. They also dream about what interests them when they are awake.

This interest, which continues from waking life into sleep, does two things, according to these thinkers. First, it forms a mental link between the dream and life. Second, it provides a dream source that we should not underestimate. This source, along with interests that develop during sleep (that is, the stimuli affecting us while we sleep), should be enough to explain where all dream images come from.

However, we have also heard an argument against this idea. This counter-argument says that dreams actually pull the sleeper away from the interests of the day. It also suggests that we usually dream about things that affected us very deeply during the day only after those things are no longer of immediate importance in our waking lives. So, at every step in studying dream life, we get the feeling that we cannot make general rules without adding words like “often,” “as a rule,” or “usually.” We must always allow for exceptions.

If our waking interests, along with the internal and external stimuli that affect us during sleep, were enough to cause all dreams, we should be able to fully explain the origin of every element in a dream. The puzzle of where dreams get their sources would be solved. The only task left would be to figure out, for any particular dream, how much came from mental stimuli and how much from physical (somatic) stimuli.

In reality, however, no dream has ever been completely explained in this way. Anyone who has tried has been left with dream components—usually very many—whose origins they could not explain. Clearly, our daily interests are not as powerful a mental source for dreams as some confident statements—like “in dreams, we all continue our daily business”—would lead us to believe.

No other mental sources for dreams are known. Therefore, all the explanations of dreams found in writings on the subject—with the possible exception of Scherner’s ideas, which we will discuss later—leave a big gap. They cannot trace the material for the most typical dream images back to a source.

In this awkward situation, most authors tend to downplay the role of mental factors in causing dreams as much as possible. This is because mental factors are so difficult to study. It’s true that they distinguish between major categories: dreams caused by nervous stimuli and dreams caused by association (where the dream comes only from memory reproduction, according to Wundt). However, they cannot shake the doubt, as Volkelt put it, “whether they [association dreams] ever appear without the push from a physical stimulus.”

Even the description of a purely association-based dream doesn’t quite work. Volkelt said: “In true association-dreams, there can no longer be any question of a firm core. Here, the looseness of how things are grouped affects even the center of the dream. In this kind of dream, the flow of imagined ideas—which is already free from sense and reason—is not even held together by the stronger physical or mental triggers. So, it is left to its own varied tricks and wishes, its own confusions and twists.”

Wundt also tries to reduce the mind’s role in starting dreams. He argues it’s probably wrong to see the fantasy-like scenes in dreams (phantasmagoria) as pure hallucinations. He suggests that most dream images are actually illusions. These illusions arise from faint sense impressions that are never completely absent during sleep. Weygandt adopted this view and applied it generally. He believed that all dream images “have their immediate cause in sensory stimuli, to which memory associations only then attach themselves.”

Tissié goes even further in downplaying mental stimuli as dream sources. He wrote: “Les rêves d’origine absolument psychique n’existent pas,” which means, “Dreams of purely mental origin do not exist.” Elsewhere, he stated: “les pensées de nos rêves nous viennent de dehors…,” meaning, “the thoughts in our dreams come to us from the outside…”

Those authors who take a middle view, like the influential philosopher Wundt, point out that in most dreams, physical (somatic) stimuli work together with mental triggers. These mental triggers might be unknown, or they might be recognized as coming from the interests of the day.

Later in this book, we will find out that the puzzle of how dreams are formed can be solved by discovering an unexpected source of stimulation within the mind (the psyche). For now, let’s not be surprised that dream triggers which do not come from mental life are often overestimated. There are reasons for this overestimation. These non-mental triggers are the only ones easy to find and even confirm through experiments. Also, the idea that dreams have a physical (somatic) origin fits perfectly with the main way of thinking in psychiatry today.

It’s true that great importance is given to the brain’s control over the body. However, anything that might show that mental life could be independent of provable physical changes in the body, or that the mind could act on its own, alarms today’s psychiatrists. It’s as if admitting this would mean going back to the old days of “Natural Philosophy” and mystical ideas about the soul. This mistrust from psychiatrists has, in a way, put the mind under strict supervision. It demands that the mind should not make any move that might show it has abilities of its own. Yet, what this attitude really implies is a lack of trust in the cause-and-effect link that extends between the body and the mind. Even when research shows that the main cause of something is mental, if we dig deeper, we will one day find that the path continues until it reaches the physical basis for that mental activity. But when, with our current knowledge, we can only see the mental as the end of the explanatory road, that is no reason to deny the importance of that mental explanation.

D. Why We Forget Our Dreams After Waking Up

It’s a common saying that a dream “fades” in the morning. Of course, dreams can be remembered. After all, the only way we know a dream existed is by remembering it after we wake up. However, we very often feel that we are remembering it only partially, and that there was more to it during the night. We can notice how a dream that is still clear in the morning can disappear during the day, leaving only bits and pieces behind. We often know that we dreamed, but not what we dreamed. We are so used to dreams being forgotten that we don’t even think it’s ridiculous to consider that we might have dreamed during the night but remember nothing in the morning—not the dream’s content, nor even the fact that we dreamed.

On the other hand, sometimes dreams can stick in our memory with extraordinary strength. I have analyzed dreams my patients had twenty-five or more years ago. And I can remember one of my own dreams that happened at least thirty-seven years ago, which is still as fresh as ever in my memory. All of this is very remarkable, and at first, it’s impossible to understand why this happens.

Strümpell has provided the most detailed discussion of why we forget dreams. Forgetting dreams is clearly a complex issue. Strümpell doesn’t blame it on a single cause but on a whole set of reasons.

First, all the reasons we forget things when we are awake also apply to forgetting dreams. When we are awake, we usually forget a huge number of sensations and perceptions right away. This happens because they were too weak, or because the mental excitement connected with them was too small. The same is true for many of our dreams. They are forgotten because they were too weak, while stronger dream images that occurred near them are remembered.

However, how intense a dream is doesn’t, by itself, determine whether we remember its images. Strümpell, as well as other authors like Calkins, admits that we often quickly forget dreams that we know were very vivid. At the same time, many vague, faintly seen images are among those that we do remember. Also, when we are awake, it’s usually easy for us to forget something that happened only once. It’s easier for us to remember something we have seen or heard repeatedly. Most dreams, however, are one-time experiences. This contributes to some extent to why all dreams can be forgotten.

There is a third reason for forgetting, which is much more important. For sensations, images, thoughts, and so on, to be memorable to a certain degree, they must not remain isolated. They need to form suitable connections and associations with other things. If we take a short line of poetry, break it into individual words, and mix them up, it will become very hard to remember. Strümpell explained: “When neatly ordered and in the right sequence, one word helps another, and the whole thing makes sense and stays firmly in our memory. In general, it is as difficult and rare for us to remember something absurd as it is to remember something confused and disorganized.”

Now, in most cases, dreams do not have clear sense or order. Dream creations are basically lacking in things that would make them memorable on their own. They are forgotten because they usually blend into one another from one moment to the next. However, these observations don’t entirely agree with what Radestock claims to have observed: that the strangest dreams are the ones we remember best.

Strümpell believed that other factors, arising from the relationship between dreams and waking life, are even more powerful in causing us to forget dreams. The ease with which our waking mind can forget dreams is clearly just the other side of a fact we discussed earlier: dreams (almost) never take ordered memories from waking life. Instead, they only take details, which they pull out of the usual mental connections that help us remember them when we are awake. This means that the way a dream is put together doesn’t fit into the organized series of thoughts that fill our minds. It has nothing in it that would help us remember it. Strümpell used a metaphor: “In this way, the dream rises up from the ground of our inner life, so to speak, and floats in our mental space like a cloud in the sky, which any fresh breeze will quickly blow away.”

This tendency to forget is made stronger by the fact that when we wake up, the flood of sensations from the world around us grabs our attention so completely that very few dreams can hold on against this force. Dreams retreat before the impressions of the new day, just as the brightness of the stars fades in the light of the sun.

Finally, we must consider that most people simply don’t show much interest in their dreams anyway. This lack of interest also helps us forget them. Anyone who becomes interested in dreams for a period, for example, to study them scientifically, will also tend to dream more during that time than usual. This probably means they remember their dreams more easily and more often.

Bonatelli (mentioned by Benini) added two other reasons for forgetting dreams, though Strümpell’s points probably already cover them:

The change in our general bodily feeling that happens between sleeping and waking makes it difficult for one state to recall things from the other.
The way imagined ideas are arranged differently in a dream makes it impossible, so to speak, for our waking mind to “translate” or understand them.

After considering all these reasons for forgetting, it really is strange that we still remember so much of our dreams, as Strümpell himself emphasizes. The ongoing efforts by writers to create rules for how dreams are remembered basically admit that there is something mysterious and unsolved here.

Some specific aspects of dream recall have rightly been noted recently. For example, a dream that we thought we had forgotten in the morning can come back to our memory during the day. This can happen if we see or hear something that happens to connect with the forgotten dream’s content (as noted by Radestock and Tissié).

However, the whole issue of remembering dreams is open to a criticism that greatly reduces its value in the eyes of skeptical observers. We have good reason to doubt whether our memory, which remembers so little of the dream, might also distort or falsify what it does remember.

Strümpell also expresses these kinds of doubts about whether we can accurately reproduce our dreams. He wrote: “It happens so easily that our waking mind unintentionally adds many things when recalling a dream. We imagine we have dreamed all sorts of things that the actual dream did not contain.”

Jessen is particularly strong on this point. He stated: “But when investigating and interpreting dreams that seem coherent and consistent, we should also very carefully consider something that has, it seems, received little attention so far: there is always the tricky problem of truth. For when we remember a dream we have had, without noticing or meaning to, we fill in the gaps in our dream and add to it. Rarely, if ever, has a coherent dream been as coherent as it appears to us when we remember it. No matter how much a person may love truth, it is almost impossible for them to tell about a remarkable dream they’ve had without adding to it or making it sound better. The human mind’s drive to see everything as connected and sensible is so great that when it remembers a relatively jumbled dream, it unintentionally fixes the flaws in its coherence.”

The comments by Egger on this subject sound like a translation of Jessen’s words, though Egger certainly came to his ideas independently. He wrote: “…l’observation des rêves a ses difficultés spéciales et le seul moyen d’éviter toute erreur en pareille matière est de confier au papier sans le moindre retard ce que l’on vient d’éprouver et de remarquer; sinon, l’oubli vient vite ou total ou partiel; l’oubli total est sans gravité; mais l’oubli partiel est perfide; car si l’on se met ensuite à raconter ce que l’on n’a pas oublié, on est exposé à compléter par imagination les fragments incohérents et disjoints fournis par la mémoire …; on devient artiste à son insu, et le récit périodiquement répété s’impose à la créance de son auteur, qui, de bonne foi, le présente comme un fait authentique, dûment établi selon les bonnes méthodes …” This means: “…the observation of dreams has its special difficulties. The only way to avoid any error in such matters is to write down immediately what one has just experienced and noticed. Otherwise, forgetting comes quickly, either completely or partially. Complete forgetting is not serious. But partial forgetting is treacherous. Because if you then start to tell what you haven’t forgotten, you are likely to complete the incoherent and disconnected fragments supplied by memory with your imagination… You become an artist without knowing it. And the story, repeated over time, begins to be believed by its author, who, in good faith, presents it as an authentic fact, properly established by good methods…”

Spitta makes a very similar observation. He seems to assume that we only introduce any order into the loosely connected elements of a dream when we try to recall it. He says we attempt—“out of mere side-by-side placement to create sequence and development, that is, to introduce the process of logical connection which the dream lacks.”

Now, since we have no other way to objectively check how faithfully we remember a dream—which is impossible anyway for a dream, as it’s our own personal experience and our memory is its only known source—what value is left in our memory of it?

E. The Unique Psychological Features of Dreams

When we study dreams scientifically, we start by assuming they are products of our own mental activity. Yet, the finished dream often feels like something foreign to us. We feel so unwilling to admit we created it that we are just as likely to say “a dream came to me” as “I dreamed.” Where does this “mental strangeness” come from?

After our discussion about dream sources, we shouldn’t think this strangeness is caused by the material that makes up the dream’s content. This is because most of that material is common to both dream life and waking life. We can ask ourselves if this feeling of strangeness is instead produced by changes made by the mental processes that happen in a dream. By exploring this, we can try to describe the dream in psychological terms.

No one has emphasized the essential difference between dreaming and waking life, or used this difference to draw such major conclusions, as G. T. Fechner has. In Fechner’s view, “neither simply lowering the conscious mental life below its main threshold” nor “withdrawing attention from the influences of the external world” is enough to explain the unique characteristics of dream life when compared to waking life.

Instead, he suspects that the “location” of the dream is different from the “location” of our waking mental life. He stated: “If the location of mental and physical activity during sleep were the same as during waking life, then, in my opinion, a dream could only be a continuation of waking mental life at a lower level of intensity. Furthermore, it would have to share the same material and the same form as waking life. But that is not how things are.”

What Fechner meant by such a “relocation” of mental activity is not at all clear. As far as I know, no one else has further explored the path he suggested with these comments.

Here are further findings from Mourly Void’s experiments:

The position of the arm or leg can also appear in the dream as an animal or a monster. This creates a kind of comparison between the limb and the creature.
In the dream, the position of an arm or leg can bring up thoughts that have some sort of connection with that limb. For example, if fingers are involved, we might dream of numbers.

From results like these, I would conclude that even the theory of physical stimuli cannot completely take away our seeming freedom in deciding which dream images are brought to mind.

4. Mental Sources of Stimuli (from the Psyche)

D. Why We Forget Our Dreams After Waking Up

Bonatelli (mentioned by Benini) added two other reasons for forgetting dreams, though Strümpell’s points probably already cover them:

The change in our general bodily feeling that happens between sleeping and waking makes it difficult for one state to recall things from the other.
The way imagined ideas are arranged differently in a dream makes it impossible, so to speak, for our waking mind to “translate” or understand them.

E. The Unique Psychological Features of Dreams

We should probably reject the idea that Fechner’s “different location” refers to specific, different parts of the brain. It likely doesn’t mean different layers of brain cells either. However, his idea might one day be useful and productive. This could happen if we apply it to a model of the mind made up of several “agencies” or parts that work in a sequence, one after the other.

Other writers have focused on highlighting one or another of the more noticeable psychological features that make dream life different. They use these features as starting points for further attempts at explanation.

It has been correctly observed that one of the main unique features of dream life already appears while we are falling asleep. This feature can be described as the phenomenon that leads into sleep. According to Schleiermacher, what marks the waking state is that our thinking happens in concepts (abstract ideas), not mainly in images. Now, dreams think mostly in images. We can observe that as sleep gets closer, and our voluntary (willed) mental activity slows down, involuntary ideas appear. These involuntary ideas all belong to the category of images.

This inability to think in a way that feels intentional, and the appearance of images that regularly comes with this less focused state of mind, are two features that continue in the dream itself. Psychological analysis forces us to recognize these as essential characteristics of dream life. These images—the hypnagogic hallucinations we learned about earlier—are, even in their content, identical to the images in dreams.

So, dreams think mainly in visual images, but not only in visual images. They also use auditory images (sounds). To a lesser extent, they use impressions from our other senses. A lot of content in dreams is also simply “thought” or imagined, much like in waking life. (This “thought” content is probably represented by leftover traces of words.) But what is truly characteristic of dreams are only those parts of the content that act like images. That is, they are more like things we are perceiving directly than like memories we are recalling.

Setting aside all the detailed psychiatric discussions about the nature of hallucinations, we can state simply that the dream hallucinates. It replaces thoughts with hallucinations. In this way, there is no difference between visual images and auditory (sound) images in dreams. It has been observed, for example, that if we remember a sequence of musical notes as we are falling asleep, this memory can transform into a hallucination of the same melody as we sink further into sleep. However, if we wake up during this drowsy, nodding-off period (which often happens), the hallucination changes back to the softer, different-feeling remembered sound.

The dream’s way of turning thoughts into hallucinations is not the only way it differs from the waking thoughts that might relate to it. The dream also creates a situation out of these images. It acts something out as if it is happening right now. It dramatizes an idea, as Spitta put it.

However, this description of dream life isn’t complete until we add another point. When we dream—as a general rule (exceptions need their own explanation)—we don’t believe we are merely thinking. Instead, we believe we are experiencing things. We accept the hallucinations as real without question. The critical thought that we were not actually experiencing anything, but were only thinking in a strange way—that is, dreaming—only comes to us when we wake up. This feature distinguishes a true dream during sleep from daydreaming. We never confuse daydreams with reality.

Burdach summarized the characteristics of dream life observed so far like this: “The essential features of the dream include: (a) Our mind’s subjective activity appears to be objective. This is because our ability to perceive treats the products of imagination as if they were being sensed directly… (b) In sleep, our self-control (autonomy) is suspended. This is why falling asleep requires a certain passivity… Images that appear during sleep are shaped by this reduction in our self-control.”

The next step is to try to explain why our mind has such strong faith in these dream hallucinations. These hallucinations can only appear after a certain amount of our independent mental activity has been put on hold. Strümpell argues that when the mind believes in dream hallucinations, it is behaving correctly and according to its own way of working. According to him, the elements of a dream are not just mere ideas or presentations. They are real and genuine experiences for the mind, similar to experiences we have when awake through our senses. When we are awake, our mind thinks and imagines using verbal images and language. In dreams, however, it imagines and thinks in real sensory images.

Also, there is an awareness of space in dreams. Sensations and images are placed in an external space, just as they are when we are awake. So, we have to admit that when it comes to its images and perceptions, the mind is in the same position in dreams as it is in waking life. If the mind still makes mistakes in dealing with these images, it’s because during sleep it lacks the ability to tell the difference between sense perceptions coming from the outside world and those coming from within itself. It cannot put its images through the only tests that can prove their objective reality. It also ignores the difference between images that can be swapped around freely and others where this freedom doesn’t exist. It makes mistakes because it is unable to apply the law of cause and effect to the content of its dreams. In short, the mind’s act of turning away from the external world is also the reason why it believes in the subjective world of the dream.

Delboeuf reached the same conclusion, though his psychological argument was partly different. According to him, we believe in the reality of dream images because during sleep we are cut off from the external world. Therefore, we have no other impressions to compare them with. But surely this isn’t the only reason we believe our dream hallucinations are true. A key factor is that during sleep, we have lost the ability to perform any tests on these experiences. The dream can create the illusion of performing all these tests. For instance, it can show us that we are touching a rose we see, and yet we are still dreaming. According to Delboeuf, there is no valid way to tell if something is a dream or waking reality except—and this is only true in practice and generally speaking—the simple fact of waking up. Delboeuf says: “I declare everything I have experienced between going to sleep and waking up to be an illusion when I notice, upon waking, that I am lying in my bed undressed.” While asleep, I believed my dream was true because of a habit of thought. This habit of thought itself doesn’t go to sleep. It assumes there is an external world that I can compare myself against.

If we emphasize the mind’s act of turning away from the external world as a key factor in shaping the most striking features of dream life, it’s worth mentioning some insightful observations Burdach made long ago. These observations shed light on the relationship between the sleeping mind and the external world. They should also make us careful not to overestimate the conclusions we have just discussed.

“Sleep occurs,” says Burdach, “only when the mind is not aroused by sensory stimuli… But the condition for sleep is not so much a complete lack of sensory stimuli as it is a lack of interest in them. Some sensory impressions are even necessary if they help to soothe the mind. For instance, a miller can only go to sleep when he hears the sound of his mill, or someone who needs a night-light for comfort cannot get to sleep in the dark.”

“In sleep, the mind isolates itself from the external world and pulls back from its outer edges… At the same time, the connection is not entirely broken. If we didn’t hear and feel while we were asleep, we couldn’t be woken up at all. The fact that sensation continues is shown even more strongly by this: we are not always woken by just the physical strength of an impression, but by its mental associations. An unimportant word will not wake a sleeper, but if you call them by their name, they will wake up… This means that even in sleep, the mind distinguishes between sensations…”

“So it seems we can also be woken by the lack of a sensory stimulus, if this stimulus relates to something we consider important. This is why we wake up when the night-light goes out, or why the miller wakes when his mill stops grinding—that is, when the sensory activity stops. This assumes that this activity was perceived all along, but as something neutral, or rather as something satisfying, that didn’t disturb the mind.”

Even if we set aside these important objections, we still have to admit that the strangeness of dreams cannot be fully explained just by the characteristics we have discussed so far—those that come from turning away from the external world. If turning away from the external world were the full explanation, it should be possible to turn the dream’s hallucinations back into ideas, and the dream’s situations back into thoughts. If we could do that, the task of interpreting dreams would be solved. In fact, this is what we do when we try to remember a dream after waking up. But whether this “back-translation” is completely or only partly successful, the dream keeps its puzzling quality just as much as before.

All the writers on this subject also assume, without a second thought, that other, deeper changes happen in dreams to the thought material from our waking lives. Strümpell tries to uncover one of these changes in the following discussion: “When active sensory perception and normal awareness of life stop, the mind also lets go of the foundation on which its feelings, desires, interests, and actions are based. Even those mental states—those feelings, interests, value judgments—that still stick to remembered images when we are awake, are affected by… a dimming pressure. As a result, their connection with the images is broken. The perceptual images of things, people, places, events, and actions from waking life are reproduced individually in great numbers, but none of them carries its psychological value with it. This value has been removed from them, and so they float around in the mind on their own…”

According to Strümpell, stripping images of their psychological value in this way largely explains the feeling of strangeness that dreams leave in our memory when compared to waking life. (He traces this process of stripping value back to the mind turning away from the external world.)

We have heard that even as we are falling asleep, we give up one of our mental activities: directing the course of our ideas with our will. This leads us to suspect something that is fairly obvious anyway: the sleeping state might also affect how our mind operates. Perhaps one or another of these mental operations is completely stopped. The question then is whether the remaining operations continue to work without disturbance, and whether they can perform their normal jobs under these circumstances.

The thought comes up that we might be able to explain the unique features of dreams by a reduced level of mental performance during sleep. The impression that dreams make on our waking judgment does support such an idea. Dreams are often jumbled. They casually put together the biggest contradictions. They allow impossible things to happen. They ignore the knowledge that guides us during the day. And they show us as being ethically and morally slow-witted. Anyone who behaved while awake the way situations in a dream show them would be considered insane. Anyone who, while awake, said or tried to communicate the kinds of things that happen in dream content would give us the impression of being confused or mentally weak. Therefore, we believe we are just stating a fact when we express a very low opinion of mental activity in dreams. Specifically, we declare that higher intellectual abilities are suspended, or at least seriously weakened, in dreams.

With rare agreement—I’ll discuss the exceptions elsewhere—the writers on this subject have made judgments about dreams that also lead directly to particular theories or explanations of dream life. It is now time for the summary I have just given to make way for a collection of statements from various writers—philosophers and doctors—on the psychological characteristics of dreams.

According to Lemoine, the incoherence (lack of logical connection) of dream images is the one essential characteristic of a dream. Maury agrees with him. He says: “il n’y a pas des rêves absolument raisonnables et qui ne contiennent quelque incohérence, quelque anachronisme, quelque absurdité.” This means: “there are no dreams that are absolutely reasonable and that do not contain some incoherence, some anachronism (something out of its proper time), some absurdity.” According to the philosopher Hegel (as cited by Spitta), dreams lack all intelligent, objective coherence. Dugas says: “Le rêve, c’est l’anarchie psychique, affective et mentale, c’est le jeu des fonctions livrées à elles-mêmes et s’exerçant sans contrôle et sans but; dans le rêve l’esprit est un automat spirituel.” This means: “The dream is mental, emotional, and intellectual anarchy. It is the play of functions left to themselves, operating without control and without purpose. In a dream, the spirit is a spiritual automaton (a self-operating machine).”

Even Volkelt, whose theory views mental activity during sleep as having a purpose, admits to the “loosening, dissolving, and confusing of ideas that are held coherently together in waking life by the logical force of the central ego.” The absurdity of the connections between ideas in dreams could hardly be criticized more harshly than it was long ago by Cicero (in On Divination): “Nihil tam praepostere, tam incondite, tam monstruose cogitari potest, quod non possimus somniare.” This means: “Nothing can be thought of that is so irrational, so disorganized, so monstrous, that we cannot dream of it.” Fechner says it is as if psychological activity had been transferred from the brain of a rational person to that of a fool. Radestock wrote: “It does in fact seem impossible to recognize any firm laws in these crazy antics. Escaping the attention of that strict policing power, the rational will, which directs our waking ideas, the dream whirls everything madly together like a kaleidoscope.”

Hildebrandt asked: “What strange adventures the dreamer allows himself, for example, in the logical conclusions he draws! With what little concern he sees the most familiar laws of experience turned upside down! What ridiculous contradictions to the rules of nature and society he can put up with before, as we say, it all gets too much for him and the extreme nonsense wakes him up! Sometimes in a dream, we will innocently multiply three by three and get twenty. We are not at all surprised if a dog recites poetry, a dead body walks to its own grave, or a rock floats on water. In all seriousness, we might go on a mission to inspect the navies of places like the Duchy of Bernburg or the Principality of Liechtenstein (which have no navies), or let King Charles XII of Sweden enlist us as a volunteer just before the historic battle of Poltava.”

Binz, referring to dream theories based on these impressions, stated: “Out of every ten dreams, the content of at least nine is absurd. In them, we pair people and things that have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Like in a kaleidoscope, one grouping changes in the next moment into another, perhaps even crazier and more senseless than the one before. And so this interplay within the imperfectly sleeping brain goes on until we wake up, grab our foreheads, and ask ourselves if we still have our ability to think rationally.”

Maury found a comparison for the relationship between dreams and waking thoughts that a doctor would find very striking. He said: “La production de ces images que chez l’homme éveillé fait le plus souvent naître la volonté, correspond, pour l’intelligence, à ce que sont par la motilité certains mouvements que nous offrent la chorée et les affections paralytiques …” This means: “The production of these images in dreams, which in a waking person are most often created by will, corresponds, for the intellect, to what certain movements seen in chorea (a neurological disorder causing jerky movements) and paralytic conditions are for motor activity…” For Maury, the rest of the dream is “toute une série de dégradations de la faculté pensante et raisonnante,” meaning “a whole series of breakdowns of the ability to think and reason.”

It’s hardly necessary to list all the writers who repeat Maury’s idea regarding the various higher functions of the mind. According to Strümpell, in a dream, all the logical operations of the mind that are based on relationships and connections pull back—this is true even when the irrationality is not immediately obvious. According to Spitta, ideas in a dream seem to be completely disconnected from the law of cause and effect. Radestock and others emphasize the weakness of judgment and logical deduction that is characteristic of dreams. According to Jodi, in a dream, there is no criticism or correction of a set of perceptions by comparing them to the overall content of consciousness. The same writer also states: “All kinds of conscious activity happen in dreams, but they are incomplete, hindered, and isolated from one another.” Strieker (along with many others) explains that the ways dreams contradict our waking knowledge come from the fact that in dreams, events get forgotten, or the logical relationships between ideas get lost, and so on.

Those authors who generally judge the mind’s performance in dreams so negatively still admit that a certain amount of mental activity does remain in a dream. Wundt, who has become an authority on dream problems for so many other writers on the subject, clearly admits this. We could ask: What is the nature of this leftover bit of normal mental life in dreams?

Some believe that dreams happen because our minds are only partly awake. One old psychology book described dreaming as a “gradual, partial, and very unusual state of waking up.”

This idea of being “partly awake” can explain a lot about dreams. It can explain why dreams sometimes make no sense at all. It can also explain why dreams can sometimes involve clear, focused thinking. The type of dream might depend on how close to being fully awake the person is.

The Brain Waking Up Bit by Bit

Some thinkers prefer to use biology to explain dreams. One such thinker, Binz, described it this way:

Imagine it’s early morning. The things in your brain that made you tired are slowly clearing away. Your blood is actively carrying them off.
In your brain, some small groups of cells start to “wake up” while most of the brain is still resting.
These few awake cells act on their own, without guidance from the other brain parts that usually control thoughts and connections.
This is why the images in our dreams, often based on recent experiences, can seem wild and chaotic.
As more brain cells wake up, dreams become less strange and more logical.

Many modern scientists and philosophers today accept this idea of dreaming as a kind of incomplete, partial waking. Or at least, their ideas are influenced by it.

A writer named Maury explored this idea in great detail. He sometimes seemed to think that being asleep or awake could happen in different parts of the body at the same time. This suggests he believed specific body areas are linked to specific mental jobs.

However, if this “partial waking” theory is true, we would need to study it much more to understand all the details.

Do Dreams Have a Purpose?

This view of dreams—as a state of being partly awake—doesn’t tell us why we dream or what purpose dreams might serve.

Binz, who we mentioned earlier, was quite clear about his view. He said that all the evidence points to dreams being physical processes. He believed dreams are always useless and, in many cases, actually unhealthy or a sign of a problem.

Dreams as a “Physical” Process

When writers like Binz call dreams “physical,” it means a few things.

Physical Causes: First, it points to the causes of dreams. Binz was especially interested in this because he did experiments showing that he could cause dreams by giving people certain drugs (poisons). This idea suggests that dreams are triggered mainly by physical things happening in the body (these are called somatic triggers).
No Need to Dream? If this is true, it means that if we could sleep without any disturbances, we wouldn’t need to dream at all until morning. Then, as new sounds or feelings start to wake us up, these could create the experience of dreaming.
Constant Disturbances: But we can’t actually keep our sleep free from all disturbances. Things are always happening that can affect a sleeper. Stimuli come from:
- Outside the body (like a noise).
- Inside the body (like an ache).
- Every part of the body. These are things the sleeper wasn’t paying attention to while awake.
Mind Wakes in Spots: Because of these disturbances, sleep gets interrupted. The mind gets “shaken” or “poked” awake in small parts. The awakened part of the mind then works for a short while, hoping to go back to sleep quickly.
Pointless Reaction: In this view, a dream is simply the mind’s reaction to these sleep disturbances. And, according to this theory, it’s a completely unnecessary reaction.

There’s another important meaning when dreams are called a “physical process,” even though they are still activities of the mind. It suggests that dreams are not worthy of being considered true mental activities.

An old metaphor illustrates how these scientists often view dreams: imagine someone who knows nothing about music randomly pressing the keys of a piano. Could this person create a real piece of music? Of course not. If dreams are like this, then they are impossible to interpret or understand.

Objections to “Partial Waking”

Not everyone agreed with this idea of “partial waking.” As early as 1830, a writer named Burdach raised some objections:

He said that calling a dream “partial waking” doesn’t actually explain sleeping or waking.
He also argued that it only tells us that some parts of our mind are active in dreams while others are resting. But, Burdach pointed out, this kind of imbalance happens all the time, even when we are awake.

Robert’s Theory: Dreams as Mental “Housekeeping”

Another interesting idea about dreams, which still considers them a “physical” process, was suggested by a writer named Robert. His theory is appealing because it suggests that dreams actually have a useful function—a good outcome.

Robert based his theory on two common observations about what we dream about:

We very often dream about the most unimportant, trivial things from our day.
We rarely dream about the major issues or interests that occupied us during the day.

Robert believed that things we have completely thought through and understood do not become the source of our dreams. Instead, he said, we dream only about things that are:

Unfinished in our minds.
Or, things that we only thought about for a moment.

He suggested that the reason we often can’t explain our dreams is that they are caused by “sensory impressions from the previous day that the dreamer was not sufficiently aware of.”

So, for an impression to become part of a dream, one of two conditions must be met:

Its processing by the mind was interrupted.
Or, it was too unimportant to be worth fully processing.

Robert described the dream as “a physical process of elimination and excretion which we become aware of in our mental reaction to it.”

In simpler terms: Dreams are the mind’s way of getting rid of undeveloped or half-formed thoughts.

Robert believed that if a person could not dream, they would eventually go mad. This is because a huge number of unfinished thoughts and quick impressions would build up in their brain. These would weigh down the mind and prevent important things from being properly stored in memory.

Therefore, the dream acts as a safety valve for an overworked brain. Dreams have the power to heal and provide relief.

It’s important to understand Robert’s idea correctly. He wasn’t saying that the act of thinking dream-thoughts brings relief. Instead, he believed that during sleep, a physical process occurs that “evacuates” or removes worthless impressions from the brain. The dream we experience is simply our mind becoming aware that this cleanup is happening. So, dreaming itself isn’t a special mental process, but more like a notification that this elimination is taking place.

Robert also added that this “excretion” isn’t the only thing happening in the mind at night. The mind also processes the day’s experiences. Any leftover thoughts that can’t be “excreted” are woven together with bits of imagination. They then become part of memory as harmless imaginary pictures.

Robert’s Theory vs. Prevailing Views

Robert’s theory about where dreams come from is very different from the more common view at the time.

Prevailing View: Dreaming wouldn’t happen unless the mind was repeatedly prodded awake by physical sensations from inside or outside the body.
Robert’s View: The urge to dream comes from within the mind itself. It comes from an overload of information that the mind wants to get rid of.

Robert believed that physical causes for dreams (like sounds or indigestion) are secondary. He thought they couldn’t cause a dream if the mind didn’t already have “raw material” (unfinished thoughts from waking life) to work with. He did admit, however, that the fantasy images created in dreams could be influenced by these nervous stimuli (physical sensations).

So, according to Robert:

Dreams are not mainly dependent on physical factors.
They are not mental processes like our waking thoughts.
Instead, a dream is a nightly physical process that works on our mental machinery.
Its function is to protect this machinery from being overloaded. To use a different image, it’s like cleaning out the stables for the mind.

Delage’s Theory: Dreams and Unprocessed Impressions

Another writer, Yves Delage, also looked at the kinds of material that appear in dreams. He, too, noticed that we dream about fragments of recent or past impressions. It’s interesting to see how a small change in how these same facts are understood can lead to a very different theory.

Delage noticed from his own experience, after someone dear to him died, that he didn’t dream about what was constantly on his mind during the day. He only dreamed about it when his intense focus on the grief began to lessen and other interests started to emerge. His research with other people showed him this was a common experience.

He even made an interesting observation about young married couples: If they were deeply in love, they almost never dreamed of each other right before the wedding or during the honeymoon. And if they did dream of love, it was often about being unfaithful with someone unimportant or even disliked.

So, what do people dream about, according to Delage? He recognized that dream material is made of:

Fragments and leftover bits of impressions from recent days or earlier times.
Things that we might initially think our dream-life created, but on closer look, turn out to be unrecognized memories (what he called “unconscious souvenirs”).

All this dream material has one thing in common: It comes from impressions that either:

Affected our senses strongly but didn’t make a big impact on our conscious mind.
Or, were impressions that our attention quickly moved away from.

Delage stated a principle: The less conscious an impression was, but the more powerful it was, the greater its chance of appearing in our next dream.

These are basically the same two types of impressions that Robert focused on: the trivial (unimportant) and the unprocessed (unfinished). However, Delage had a different idea about why they cause dreams. He believed these impressions lead to dreams not because they are trivial, but because they are unprocessed.

Even trivial impressions, he argued, are, to some extent, not fully processed. They are like “tensed springs” that will relax or unwind during sleep. A powerful impression that was accidentally interrupted or deliberately pushed out of mind (suppressed) would have an even stronger chance of appearing in a dream than a weak or barely noticed one.

According to Delage, the mental energy that builds up during the day by holding back or suppressing thoughts and feelings becomes the main force driving dreams at night. In other words, what appears in our dreams is what we have mentally pushed away or suppressed.

Unfortunately, Delage didn’t fully develop this line of thought. He ended up giving only a very small role to the mind’s independent activity in dreams. He returned to the common idea that the brain is only partly sleeping during dreams. He concluded: “In short, the dream is the product of wandering thought, without aim or direction. This thought fixes itself on memories that have kept enough intensity to appear in its path. It establishes links between them – sometimes weak and vague, sometimes stronger and tighter. This depends on how much the brain’s current activity is reduced by sleep.”

Theories of Dreams as Special Mental Achievements

We can identify a third group of dream theories. These theories suggest that when we dream, our minds have the ability and tendency to perform exceptional mental feats. These are feats that our minds are either incapable of when awake, or can only do imperfectly.

Generally, these theories see the exercise of these special dream capacities as having a beneficial function. Many older psychology writers held views like this.

For example, Burdach, whom we mentioned earlier, saw dreaming as “the natural activity of the soul.” He believed that in dreams, the mind is not restricted by individual power, not disturbed by self-awareness, and not directed by conscious will. Instead, it is the mind’s core vitality enjoying free and uninhibited play.

Burdach and others saw this free use of the mind’s powers as a state where it refreshes itself and gathers new energy for the day’s work, much like taking a holiday. Burdach even quoted the poet Novalis, who praised dreams in this way:

“The dream is a defense against the ordinary regularity of life, a recreation for the fettered fantasy. It’s a place where imagination can throw all the images of life into confusion and interrupt the seriousness of adults with joyful children’s play. Without dreams, we would certainly grow old sooner. So, we can regard the dream, if not as a direct gift from above, still as a delightful task, a friendly companion on our pilgrimage to the grave.”

Dreams as Refreshing and Healing

The refreshing and healing power of dreams was described even more strongly by another writer, Purkinje. He said:

“Productive dreams especially would have these functions. They are effortless products of the imagination in free play, unconnected with the events of the day. The psyche (mind) does not wish to continue the tensions of waking life, but to resolve them, recover from them. First and foremost, it produces states that are the very opposite of those in our waking state. It cures sadness with joy, care with hope and cheerful diverting images, hatred with love and kindness, fear with courage and confidence; doubt it soothes with conviction and firm faith, vain expectations with fulfilment. Many sore places in the heart, which the day would keep ever open, are healed by sleep, which covers them over and keeps them from fresh irritation. This is what the healing effect of time in part depends upon.”

We all generally feel that sleep is good for our mental well-being. And common sense seems to hold onto the belief that dreaming is one of the ways sleep provides these benefits.

Scherner’s Theory: The Dominance of Imagination in Dreams

One of the most original and detailed attempts to explain dreaming as a unique mental activity that can only develop freely in sleep was made by Scherner in 1861.

Scherner’s book was written in a very passionate, elaborate, and enthusiastic style. This style could either sweep readers along or put them off. His writing was so complex that it’s often easier to understand his theories through clearer summaries written by others, like the philosopher Volkelt. Even a supporter of Scherner said that while his work had “flashes of mysterious sense,” it didn’t always clearly light the way for understanding.

Scherner did not believe that the mind’s usual abilities remain unchanged in dreams. He explained that in dreams:

The central control of our “self” (ego) and its spontaneous energy become weaker.
As a result of this weakening, our abilities to think, feel, make decisions, and create ideas are altered.
What remains of these mental forces no longer acts like a true mind but more like a machine.

However, according to Scherner, one mental activity soars to absolute power in dreams: imagination. This dream-imagination is:

Free from all control by reason.
Free from all limits.

While dream-imagination gets its basic building blocks from waking memory, it uses them to construct things vastly different from our waking thoughts. In dreams, imagination is not just reproductive (replaying old things); it is also productive (creating new things).

These unique features give dream-life its special character:

Preference for the Extreme: Dream-imagination loves what is unrestrained, exaggerated, and even monstrous or bizarre.
Flexibility: Because it’s freed from the strict rules of logical thought, it is very flexible, agile, and can change shapes easily.
Sensitivity: It is highly sensitive to subtle triggers that cause gentle, warm moods or disturbing emotions.
Vivid Imagery: It immediately turns inner feelings into vivid pictures that seem as real as things we see when awake.
Visual Language: Dream-imagination doesn’t use concepts or words. It has to “paint” what it wants to say visually. Because it’s not weakened by abstract concepts, it paints with all the richness and power of something actually seen.
Symbolism: Although this visual language is clear in one sense, its visual nature can also make it rambling, awkward, and clumsy. Its clarity is especially reduced because it often avoids expressing an object with its own image. Instead, it prefers to use a different image (a symbol) as long as that symbol can express the particular aspect of the object the imagination wants to show. This is the symbolizing activity of the imagination.
Outline and Improvisation: It’s also very important that dream-imagination doesn’t reproduce objects in full detail. It usually shows them only in outline, and very freely. Because of this, its “paintings” often seem like brilliant, quick improvisations or sketches.

However, Scherner believed that dream-imagination doesn’t just create a picture of an object. It feels an inner need to get the dreaming person involved with that object, more or less deeply. This involvement creates a kind of story or dramatic action in the dream. For example, if a dream is sparked by a visual impression, it might show pieces of gold in the street. Then, the dreamer in the dream gathers them up, feels happy, and carries them off.

What does this powerful dream-imagination use as its raw material? According to Scherner, it mainly uses sensations from our body’s organs – feelings we barely notice during the day.

Interestingly, on this one point about the sources of dreams, Scherner’s very imaginative ideas agree with the more down-to-earth ideas of scientists like Wundt and other physiologists. Both agree that dreams often start from these internal body signals. But they strongly disagree about what happens next.

The Physiologists’ View: The mind reacts to these body signals. It creates ideas that fit these signals. These ideas then trigger other connected ideas through association. And that’s pretty much the whole dream process.
Scherner’s View: These body signals are just the starting point, the raw material. The mind uses this material for its creative, imaginative purposes. For Scherner, the real work of forming a dream is just beginning when other theories say it’s already over.

Scherner didn’t think that what dream-imagination does with these body signals is for a specific, practical purpose. Instead, he thought it kind of plays a teasing game with them. It takes the physical sensation and creates a visible image of where that sensation might be coming from in the body.

Scherner had a very specific idea, though not everyone agreed with him: he believed that dream-imagination often pictures the entire body as a house. But it’s not always that simple:

Sometimes, many houses (like a long street of houses) might represent a single organ. For instance, a sensation from the intestines might be pictured as a very long street of houses.
Other times, specific parts of a house might stand for specific parts of the body. For example, if someone has a headache, they might dream of a room ceiling covered with disgusting, toad-like spiders. Scherner would say the ceiling represents the person’s head.

It’s not just houses. Scherner believed dream-imagination uses all sorts of other objects to represent body parts that are sending signals and causing dreams. Volkelt, who wrote about Scherner’s ideas, gave some examples:

The lungs (when breathing) might be symbolized by a fiery oven making a roaring sound like breath.
The heart might be shown as empty baskets or chests.
The bladder might appear as bag-like or hollow objects.

Scherner also described symbols for sexual organs and feelings:

In a man’s sexual dream, he might find the top part of a clarinet, part of a tobacco pipe, and a fur coat. The clarinet and pipe might represent the shape of the male organ, and the fur might represent pubic hair.
In a woman’s sexual dream, the area between the thighs might be shown as a narrow courtyard surrounded by houses. The vagina might be a very narrow, slippery, soft path across the yard, which the dreamer has to walk on, perhaps to deliver a letter to a man.

A very important point for Scherner: At the end of these dreams caused by body sensations, the dream-imagination often “takes off its mask.” This means it might directly show the organ causing the dream, or its function, without a symbol. For example, a dream caused by a toothache usually ends with the dreamer pulling a tooth out of their mouth.

Scherner believed dream-imagination could do more than just represent the shape of the body part causing the dream. It could also symbolize the substance or contents within that organ.

For example, a dream caused by sensations from the intestines might show the dreamer walking through muddy streets.
A dream caused by a full bladder might show the dreamer near foaming water.

The imagination can also symbolically represent the sensation itself, the nature of the feeling (e.g., sharp, dull), or what the sensation seems to “want” (e.g., relief). Sometimes, the dreaming self directly interacts with symbols of its own condition.

For example, if the dreamer feels pain, they might dream of desperately fighting off snapping dogs or angry bulls.
In a sexual dream, a woman might see herself being chased by a naked man.

No matter how many different ways it shows things, Scherner believed the main power in every dream is this symbolizing activity of the imagination.

Volkelt, the philosopher who explained Scherner, tried to understand this dream-imagination more deeply and fit it into a larger system of philosophical ideas. His book is beautifully written and passionate, but very hard to understand unless you’re already trained in philosophy.

According to Scherner, this symbolizing imagination in dreams doesn’t have a practical, useful purpose. When we dream, the mind simply plays with the sensations it receives. We could even say it plays with them in a mischievous way.

Now, you might ask: Is it really useful to spend so much time looking at Scherner’s theory? It seems quite random and not very scientific. But we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss it without careful thought. Here’s why:

Scherner’s theory is based on the strong impressions his own dreams made on him. He paid close attention to them, and he seems to have been naturally skilled at exploring the hidden parts of the mind.
Also, dreams themselves are a topic that people have found mysterious but fascinating for thousands of years. Strict science admits it hasn’t explained them very well. Often, science has just tried to say dreams are meaningless, which goes against what most people feel.

Let’s be honest: it seems very hard to explain dreams without getting into ideas that sound a bit fantastic or imaginative. Even very careful scientists, like Binz, can sound fantastic. His description of brain cells waking up like an “aurora” (a dawn light) is just as imaginative – and perhaps unlikely – as Scherner’s ideas.

The author of this book hopes to show that there is something real behind Scherner’s ideas. It might be vaguely understood and not apply to all dreams, but it’s there. For now, Scherner’s theory is important because it shows one extreme end of how people try to explain dreams. It’s very different from, say, the medical theories, and it highlights the wide range of opinions that still exist today.

(h) Dreams and Mental Illness

When we talk about how dreams relate to mental illnesses (or “disturbances”), we can mean three different things:

How they cause or appear with illnesses: For example, a dream might come instead of a mental breakdown, might be the start of one, or might be what’s left after one. These are causal and clinical links.
How dreams change: How does a person’s dream life change when they have a mental illness?
Inner connections: Are there deep similarities between dreams and mental illnesses that suggest they are alike in important ways?

Medical writers in the past loved to discuss these connections, and it’s become a topic of interest again more recently. Many have written about this. For our purposes here, we will just briefly touch on this subject.

Let’s look at some examples of how dreams can be linked to the cause or appearance of mental illnesses.

Hohnbaum reported that the first sign of madness was often said to be a terrible, frightening dream. The person’s main disturbed idea was often connected to this dream. Sante de Sanctis observed similar things in people with paranoia. He even said that in some cases, a dream was the “true and decisive cause of the madness.”

A mental illness might appear suddenly, with a key dream seeming to explain it all. Or, it might develop slowly, with more dreams that the person still struggles to understand. In one of Sante de Sanctis’s cases, a disturbing dream was followed by mild episodes of hysteria, and later by a period of sadness and anxiety. Féré reported a dream that led to a type of paralysis (hysterical paralysis).

In these examples, the dream seems to be a cause of the mental illness. However, we could also say that the mental illness first showed itself in the dream life, or that it first broke out through a dream.

In other cases:

The unhealthy symptoms are only found in dreams.
Or the mental illness itself seems to be limited to dream-life.

For example, Thomayer pointed out anxiety dreams that he thought were like epileptic seizures. Radestock mentioned Allison’s descriptions of “nighttime insanity.” These were people who seemed perfectly healthy during the day but regularly had hallucinations or fits of rage at night. Sante de Sanctis also found similar things, like an alcoholic man whose dream was like paranoia – he heard voices in his dream accusing his wife of being unfaithful. Tissié shared many recent examples where unhealthy actions (based on false beliefs or strong urges) came from dreams. Guislain described a case where periods of sleep were sometimes replaced by periods of insanity.

It’s certain that one day, doctors will study not just the normal psychology of dreams, but also a psychopathology of dreams – that is, the ways dreams themselves can be “unhealthy” or disordered.

When people are recovering from a mental illness, something interesting often happens. The person might seem to be doing well and thinking clearly during the day. But their dream life can still be affected by the illness they are recovering from. Gregory was apparently the first to notice this, according to Krauss. Macario told a story about a patient who had been manic (a state of high excitement and energy). A week after this patient had fully recovered, he re-experienced in his dreams the racing thoughts and strong urges that were part of his illness.

So far, not many studies have looked into how the dream life of people with permanent mental illnesses changes. However, the strong connection between dreams and mental illness has been clear for a long time. This is because many things about them look very similar.

Cabanis was one of the first to point this out, followed by others like Lélut, J. Moreau, and the philosopher Maine de Biran. But people were comparing dreams and madness even before them. Radestock started his chapter on this topic with several quotes that compare dreams to madness:

Kant: “The lunatic is one who dreams while awake.”
Krauss: “Madness is a dream with waking senses.”
Schopenhauer: Called dreams “a brief madness” and madness “a long dream.”
Hagen: Described delirium (a state of confusion often with fever) as “dream-life caused by illness instead of sleep.”
Wundt: “Indeed, in our dreams we can experience almost all the things we see in mental asylums.”

Spitta (and Maury before him) listed specific ways dreams and mental illness are alike:

Less self-awareness: In both, self-consciousness is reduced or gone. This means the person isn’t aware of their state, isn’t surprised by it, and may lack a moral sense.
Changed senses: How the senses work is different. In dreams, perception is usually weaker. In madness, it’s often much stronger or more intense.
Loose connections between ideas: Thoughts are linked only by simple association (one idea just brings up another). This leads to thoughts flowing automatically and can result in strange connections, exaggerations, and fantasies.
Personality changes: The person’s personality can change or even seem to reverse. Sometimes their character changes in negative ways.

Radestock added more similarities in the content of dreams and mental illness:

Most hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t there) and illusions (misinterpreting real things) involve sight, hearing, and general body feelings. Just like in dreams, smell and taste are much less common.
The confused thoughts during a fever (delirium) and dream memories both often bring up things from the distant past. Things that healthy, awake people seem to have forgotten can be remembered by those who are sick or asleep.

The comparison between dreams and mental illness becomes even stronger when you look at subtle things, like small gestures or unique facial expressions – like a family resemblance.

Radestock also pointed out something very important (based on Griesinger’s work):

For someone suffering in real life, dreams can provide the well-being and happiness that reality denies them.
Similarly, people with mental illnesses often have vivid images of happiness, greatness, or wealth.
The main content of their delirium (confused state) is often about supposedly having things they want or fulfilling desires that were denied in real life – perhaps the very desires whose loss caused their illness.
For example: A woman who lost a child might experience the joys of being a mother in her delirium. Someone who lost money might believe they are incredibly rich. A girl who was abandoned might see herself as being tenderly loved.

(The author of this book notes here: This idea of wish-fulfillment being common to both dreams and mental illness is extremely important. He believes it’s the key to understanding the psychology of both dreams and these illnesses.)

Other main features of both dreams and madness are bizarre combinations of ideas and weakness of judgment. In both states, people might overestimate their own intelligence, leading to ideas that seem ridiculous to a clear-thinking person. The quick flow of images in dreams is like the rapid “flight of ideas” in some mental illnesses. Both dreams and madness often lack a normal sense of time.

The “splitting of personality” that can happen in dreams is very similar to what occurs in hallucinatory paranoia. For example, in a dream, your own knowledge might seem to be divided between two people, with one (who seems like a stranger) correcting “you.” Similarly, in paranoia, a person might hear their own thoughts spoken by voices that seem to come from outside. Even stubborn false beliefs (delusions) in mental illness have a parallel in unhealthy dreams that keep repeating (what some call “obsessive dreams”).

After people recover from delirium, they often say that the whole time they were sick felt like a dream – and sometimes not an unpleasant one. In fact, they sometimes say that during their illness, they occasionally felt like they were just stuck in a dream, which is a feeling people often have in regular sleep dreams too.

After considering all these similarities, it’s not surprising that Radestock summarized his own views and those of many others by saying: “Madness, which is an abnormal, unhealthy condition, should be seen as an intensified version of the normal, regularly occurring state of dreaming.”

Krauss tried to find an even closer connection between dreams and madness than just saying they look alike. He looked for a common cause or a common source of stimulation. He believed the basic thing they both share is, as we’ve heard before, sensations caused by the body’s organs – somatic sensations. This is the general feeling of being alive that comes from all our organs working together.

The fact that dreams and mental illness are so clearly similar, even in small details, provides strong support for the medical theory of dream-life. This theory, as we’ve seen, views dreams as useless and disruptive processes, and as a sign that mental activity is reduced.

However, we can’t expect to fully explain dreams by comparing them to mental illness as long as our understanding of mental illnesses themselves is still so incomplete. On the other hand, it seems likely that if we develop a better understanding of dreams, this will change how we view the inner workings of mental illnesses. So, we could say that by trying to understand the mystery of dreams, we are also working towards explaining mental illnesses.

Our advanced mental abilities are all connected to the imaginary pictures we create from our senses. These abilities include:

Understanding concepts.
Making judgments.
Reasoning and drawing conclusions.
Making free choices (self-determination).

Because these higher mental powers rely on sensory images as their foundation, they are also involved in the uncontrolled and irregular images we experience in dreams.

However, it’s important to understand that our basic power of judgment and our willpower are not themselves changed or damaged during dreams. These mental abilities are just as sharp and just as free as they are when we are awake.

Even in our dreams, we cannot violate fundamental laws of thought. For example, we cannot truly believe that a pictured object is the same as its opposite. Also, in our dreams, we can only desire what we imagine to be good at that moment.

But here’s the issue: while our minds try to apply these laws of thinking and wanting in dreams, they get led astray. This happens because the mind confuses one idea with another.

This confusion is why we sometimes think or do the most contradictory things in dreams. On the other hand, this same state can sometimes allow us to make very clear-sighted judgments, draw the most logical conclusions, or make the most virtuous and good decisions.

The whole secret behind why our imagination takes such wild flights in dreams is a lack of orientation. This means we lose our sense of where we are and what is real.

Furthermore, the main source of the limitless extravagance in our dream judgments, hopes, and desires is:

A lack of critical reflection (we don’t stop to question things).
A lack of communication with others (we can’t discuss or verify our thoughts).

II THE METHOD OF INTERPRETING DREAMS

Dreams Can Be Understood

The title of this book shows which tradition I follow in understanding dreams. I plan to show that dreams can be interpreted. If this work also helps to clear up some of the general problems about dreams we’ve discussed, I’ll consider that a welcome bonus to my main goal.

My belief that dreams can be interpreted puts me at odds with the most common scientific theories about dreams. In fact, it goes against almost every dream theory except for Scherner’s.

To “interpret a dream” means to find its “meaning.” It means replacing the dream with something that fits into the logical chain of our thoughts and feelings as an equal and valid part.

However, as we’ve learned, most scientific theories about dreams don’t even consider the possibility of interpretation. They see dreams not as mental activities at all, but as physical (somatic) processes in the body. These processes just happen to show some signs in our minds.

Everyday people have always thought differently. They can be inconsistent: on one hand, they admit dreams are often confusing and absurd. But on the other hand, they can’t bring themselves to say dreams have no meaning at all. A vague feeling seems to suggest to them that dreams do have a meaning, even if it’s hidden. They sense that a dream might be a substitute for another way of thinking. They believe it’s just a matter of finding the right way to uncover this hidden meaning.

Old Ways of Interpreting Dreams

Because of this belief, people have always tried to “interpret” dreams. They have used two main methods.

Symbolic Interpretation The first method looks at the dream’s content as a whole. It tries to replace the entire dream with a different story that makes sense and is similar in some way. This is symbolic dream interpretation.

Of course, this method fails right away with dreams that are not just hard to understand but also very confused. A good example of symbolic interpretation is how Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream in the Bible. Pharaoh dreamed of seven fat cows followed by seven skinny cows that ate the fat ones. Joseph said this was a symbolic substitute for a prophecy: seven years of famine in Egypt would eat up all the extra food saved during seven years of plenty.

Most artificial dreams made up by poets are meant to be interpreted this way. The poets put their thoughts into a disguise that looks like the kinds of dreams we really have.

The idea that dreams are mainly about the future—that they give hints of what’s to come—is a leftover from when dreams were seen as prophecies. This belief often leads people to take the symbolic meaning they find in a dream and turn it into a prediction about the future, using phrases like “it will happen.”

There are no set rules for figuring out these symbolic interpretations. Success depends on inspiration or a sudden insight. That’s why interpreting dreams through symbols became like an art form, seemingly requiring a special gift.
The Decoding Method (Using Dream Books) The other common method of dream interpretation is much simpler. We could call it the “decoding method.” This method treats a dream like a secret message written in code. Every sign or image in the dream is translated into another sign with a known meaning, using a fixed key.

For example, if I dream of a letter, and also of a funeral, I might look in a “dream book.” There, I might find that “letter” means “bad mood,” and “funeral” means “engagement.” It would then be up to me to try to connect these decoded words and assume they predict something in the future.

An interesting variation of this decoding method was described by Artemidorus of Daldis in his book on dream interpretation. He didn’t just look at the dream’s content. He also considered the dreamer’s personality and life circumstances. So, the same dream element could mean one thing for a rich man, a married man, or a public speaker, and something different for a poor man, an unmarried man, or a merchant.

The key point of this decoding method is that it doesn’t try to interpret the dream as a whole. Instead, it looks at each piece of the dream’s content separately, as if the dream were a pile of different rocks, each needing its own definition. It was likely the confusing and jumbled nature of many dreams that first led people to develop this decoding method.

Why These Old Methods Don’t Work for Science

There’s no doubt that neither of these popular methods is useful for a scientific study of dreams.

The symbolic method can only be applied in limited cases and can’t be described as a general technique.
As for the decoding method, everything depends on whether the “key” (the dream book) is reliable. There’s absolutely no guarantee that it is.

Faced with these problems, we might be tempted to agree with philosophers and psychiatrists who dismiss the whole idea of interpreting dreams as a fantasy.

A New Scientific Approach to Dreams

But I have learned otherwise. I’ve realized that this is another case where an old, stubbornly held popular belief might be closer to the truth than current scientific judgment. I believe that dreams really do have a meaning, and that a scientific method for interpreting dreams is possible.

I discovered this method in the following way.

For many years, I have worked to understand certain psychological problems like hysterical phobias and obsessive ideas for therapeutic purposes. I started doing this after learning from Josef Breuer’s important work. Breuer showed that for these kinds of problems, which people experience as symptoms of illness, figuring out their origin is the same as curing them. If you can trace such a problematic idea back to the elements in the patient’s inner life that created it, the idea will fall apart, and the patient will be free from it.

Our other therapy methods at the time were not very effective, and these conditions were puzzling. So, despite the difficulties, I was motivated to follow the path Breuer started, aiming for a complete solution. I will describe how this technique developed and its results in detail at another time.

During these psychoanalytical studies, I stumbled upon the interpretation of dreams. My patients, who had agreed to tell me all the thoughts and ideas that came to them about a certain topic, also told me their dreams. Through this, they taught me that a dream can be inserted into the chain of mental events. This chain starts from a problematic idea and can be traced backward in memory. This suggested that the dream itself could be treated as a symptom. Therefore, the method of interpretation developed for symptoms could also be applied to dreams.

The Technique: Uncritical Self-Observation

Now, for this method to work, the patient’s mind needs some preparation. I ask the patient to do two things:

Pay much closer attention to their own mental perceptions (thoughts and feelings).
Switch off the critical judgment they normally use to filter the thoughts that arise in their mind.

To help them focus entirely on self-observation, it’s useful for them to lie down and close their eyes. They must be specifically told to avoid making any critical judgments about the thoughts they notice.

They are told that the success of psychoanalysis depends on them:

Paying attention to everything that passes through their mind.
Reporting it all.
Not giving in to the temptation to hold back an idea because it seems unimportant or irrelevant.
Not suppressing another idea because it seems nonsensical.

They must be completely impartial toward the ideas that come to them. It was precisely this critical judgment that was responsible for past failures to find the solution to a dream, an obsessional idea, or other problems.

During my psychoanalytical work, I’ve noticed that a person thinking deeply (reflecting) is in a very different mental state from someone observing their own mental processes. Reflection involves more mental activity than even the most attentive self-observation. You can see this in the tense expression and furrowed brow of someone reflecting, compared to the calm expression of someone self-observing. Both require concentration.

But the person who is reflecting is also being critical. As a result, when ideas arise, they reject some and cut others short, so they don’t follow the paths of thought those ideas might open. They act in such a way that other thoughts never even become conscious; they are suppressed before being noticed.

The self-observer, on the other hand, only has to work at suppressing this critical activity. If they succeed, a huge number of thoughts enter their consciousness that they would otherwise have been unable to grasp. This newly available material is what allows us to interpret both problematic ideas and dreams.

So, the goal is to create a mental state that is somewhat similar to the state just before falling asleep (and also similar to hypnosis) in terms of how mental energy or attention is distributed.

As we fall asleep: “Involuntary ideas” emerge because we reduce a certain willful (and critical) control over our thoughts. We usually call this reduction “tiredness.” These emerging involuntary ideas then transform into visual and sound images (dreams).
In our analytical method: We deliberately choose to stop this critical activity. We then use the mental energy saved (or part of it) to carefully follow the involuntary thoughts that now emerge. These thoughts remain as ideas (this is the difference from the pre-sleep state). In this way, we turn “involuntary” ideas into “voluntary” ones that we can examine.

Generally, it’s not difficult for someone to enter this state of uncritical self-observation. Most of my patients can do it after the first instruction. I myself can achieve it very well by writing down the thoughts that occur to me. Writing things down seems to reduce the critical activity, freeing up mental energy that can then be used to observe thoughts more intensely. However, how easy it is can vary depending on the subject one is focusing on.

Breaking Down the Dream

The first step in using this procedure shows us that we should not focus on the dream as a whole. Instead, we must focus on the separate parts of its content.

If I ask a patient who is new to this, “What does this dream make you think of?”, they usually can’t recall anything specific. I have to present the dream to them bit by bit. For each piece, they will then provide a series of ideas that come to their mind. These ideas can be called the “ulterior motives” or underlying thoughts connected to that part of the dream.

With this first important rule, my method of dream interpretation differs from the popular symbolic method, which looks at the dream as a whole. Instead, my method is closer to the other approach, the “decoding method.” Like decoding, it is an interpretation of details, not of the whole mass. And like decoding, it views the dream from the start as something put together from many separate mental pieces.

Why I Will Use My Own Dreams as Examples

During my psychoanalysis of patients with neuroses, I have probably interpreted at least a thousand dreams. However, I prefer not to use this material here to introduce the technique and theory of dream interpretation.

There are a couple of reasons for this:

One could object that these are, after all, the dreams of people with psychological issues (“neuropaths”). Therefore, conclusions drawn from them might not apply to the dreams of mentally sound people.
More importantly, the subject matter of these patients’ dreams is always tied to the personal history of their neurosis. Explaining each dream would require a very long introduction, going deep into the nature and causes of their psychological conditions. These are complex and often unsettling topics themselves, and they would distract attention from the problem of dreams.

My goal here is actually the reverse: I want to use the understanding of dreams as a starting point to clarify the more difficult problems in the psychology of neuroses.

But if I don’t use the dreams of my neurotic patients, which is my main source of material, I can’t be too selective with what’s left. All I have are dreams occasionally told to me by mentally sound acquaintances, or examples I’ve found in books about dream life. Unfortunately, I don’t have a proper analysis for any of these dreams. Without such analysis, I can’t discover their meaning. My procedure isn’t as simple as the popular decoding method, which just translates dream content using a fixed key. Instead, I expect that the same dream content can hide a very different meaning for different people and in different contexts.

So, I have to rely on my own dreams. They provide an abundant and convenient source of material from a more-or-less normal person, relating to various everyday situations.

Some will surely question the reliability of such “self-analyses.” They might say there’s a risk of arbitrary conclusions. However, in my judgment, the conditions for self-observation are actually more favorable than for observing others. In any case, we can try to see how far self-analysis can take us in interpreting dreams.

There are other personal difficulties I must overcome. It’s understandable to feel hesitant about exposing so many intimate things about one’s own mental life, especially knowing that others might misinterpret them. But this is something one must be able to move past. As the writer Delboeuf said, “Every psychologist is obliged to confess even his weaknesses if he believes he can thereby shed light on some obscure problem.”

And I trust that your initial interest in any personal details I have to share will soon shift to a focus solely on the psychological problems these details help to explain.

Therefore, I will take one of my own dreams and use it to explain my method of interpretation. Every dream analyzed this way requires some background information. So, I must now ask you, the reader, to share my interests for a little while. Please dive with me into the smallest details of my life, because our interest in the hidden meaning of dreams absolutely requires this kind of engagement.

Preamble to My Dream Example

Here is the background for a dream I had.

In the summer of 1895, I was providing psychoanalytic treatment to a young lady. She was a very close friend of mine and my family. You can understand that these kinds of mixed relationships can create various difficulties for a doctor, especially for a psychotherapist. The doctor’s personal interest is greater, but their authority is less. A failure in treatment can threaten the friendship with the patient’s relatives.

The treatment ended with partial success. The patient lost her hysterical anxiety, but not all her physical symptoms. At that time, I wasn’t yet completely sure about the signs that would indicate a hysterical illness was definitively cured. I suggested a solution to my patient that she seemed to find unacceptable. We ended the treatment in this state of disagreement because of the summer holidays.

One day, a younger colleague, one of my closest friends, visited me. He had also recently visited my patient—let’s call her Irma—and her family at their country home. I asked him how he found her. He replied, “She is better, but not entirely recovered.”

I know I was annoyed by these words from my friend Otto (my colleague’s name), or perhaps by the tone in which he said them. I thought I heard criticism in his words, perhaps that I had promised my patient too much. Rightly or wrongly, I blamed Otto’s apparent disapproval on the influence of Irma’s relatives. I assumed they had never really approved of my treating her. In any case, the unpleasant feeling I had was unclear to me, and I didn’t say anything about it.

That same evening, I wrote out Irma’s clinical history. I intended to give it to Dr. M., a friend we both shared and who was a leading figure in our circle at the time. I wrote it as if to justify my actions.

During the night after this evening (or more likely, in the early morning), I had the following dream. I wrote it down immediately after waking up.

Here is the dream I had on the night of July 23rd or the early morning of July 24th, 1895:

The Dream (July 23-24, 1895)

I saw a large hall where we were welcoming many guests. Among them was Irma. I took her aside immediately, as if to answer a letter from her and to tell her off for not yet accepting my “solution” to her problems.

I said to her: “If you are still having pain, it is really only your own fault.”

She replied: “If only you knew what pain my throat and stomach and abdomen are giving me. I feel like I am choking.”

I was startled and looked at her. She looked pale and puffy. I thought, “Perhaps I have missed some physical illness after all.” I took her to the window and looked at her throat. She resisted a little, like women who wear false teeth. I thought to myself, “But she doesn’t need to do that.”

Then her mouth opened wide. On the right side, I saw a big white patch. Elsewhere in her throat, I saw large, greyish-white scabs on strange, curled structures that looked like the inside of nostrils.

I quickly called Dr. M. over. He examined her again and confirmed what I saw. Dr. M. looked very different from usual; he was very pale, walked with a limp, and his chin was clean-shaven (no beard).

My friend Otto was now also standing beside her. My friend Leopold was tapping on her chest through her dress. He said, “She has a dull area low on the left.” He also pointed to an infected-looking patch of skin on her left shoulder (which I also felt, despite her dress).

Dr. M. said: “There’s no doubt it’s an infection, but it doesn’t matter. Dysentery will start, and the poison will be eliminated.”

We also knew exactly where the infection came from. Not long before, when Irma felt unwell, my friend Otto had given her an injection of a chemical. I thought of several names for it: a propyl preparation, propylene, propionic acid, and then trimethylamine. I could even see the chemical formula for trimethylamine printed in bold type before me. I thought, “Such injections should not be given so carelessly. The syringe was probably not clean, either.”

My First Thoughts About the Dream

This dream has one advantage over many others. It’s immediately clear which events of the previous day it connects to and what subject it is about. The background information I gave earlier provides these details. The news from Otto about Irma’s condition and the case history I had written late into the night were still on my mind, even in my sleep.

Even so, no one who knows the background and the dream’s content could have any idea what the dream means. I myself don’t know. I am surprised by the symptoms Irma complains of in the dream because they are not the same ones I had been treating her for. I smile at the absurd idea of an injection of propionic acid and at the strange comfort Dr. M. offers. Towards its end, the dream seems more obscure and jumbled than at the beginning. To discover the meaning of all this, I must undertake a detailed analysis.

Analysis

Here is my analysis of the dream, piece by piece:

“The hall—many guests, whom we are receiving.” That summer, my family and I were living at Bellevue, a house that stood alone on a hill. The house was once meant to be a dance hall, which is why it had unusually large, hall-like rooms. I had this dream at Bellevue a few days before my wife’s birthday. During the day, my wife had mentioned that she expected several friends, including Irma, to come as guests for her birthday. So, my dream seems to be looking forward to this occasion: it’s my wife’s birthday, and we are receiving many people, Irma among them, in the large hall at Bellevue.

“I reproach Irma for not having accepted the solution I had suggested; I say: If you are still having pain, it is really only your own fault.” I could have said this to her in real life, or perhaps I actually did say it to her. At that time, I believed (though I later realized this was incorrect) that my job was only to tell my patients the hidden meaning of their symptoms. Whether they accepted this solution, which was necessary for successful treatment, was no longer my responsibility. I am grateful for this past mistake, now corrected, because it made my life easier at a time when I was supposed to be producing cures despite my unavoidable lack of knowledge.

But I notice from what I say to Irma in the dream that, above all, I am refusing to be blamed for the pain she still has. If it is Irma’s own fault, then it cannot be mine. Is this where the dream’s intention lies?

“Irma’s complaining; pains in her throat, abdomen, and stomach, a feeling of choking.” Stomach pains were among my patient’s real symptoms, though not very severe. She mostly complained of sickness and nausea. Pains in the throat and abdomen, or choking sensations, were hardly part of her actual condition. I wonder why I chose these particular symptoms in my dream, but for the moment, I can’t find an answer.

“She looks pale and puffy.” My real patient, Irma, always had rosy cheeks. I suspect that in the dream, characteristics of another person are being projected onto her.

“I am startled to think I have overlooked an organic illness after all.” This is, as you might imagine, a constant worry for a specialist who mainly sees patients with neuroses (psychological issues). Such a specialist is used to blaming many symptoms on hysteria, while other doctors might see them as signs of a physical (organic) illness. On the other hand, a faint doubt creeps into my mind—I don’t know where it comes from—about whether my alarm in the dream is entirely genuine. If Irma’s pains are caused by a physical illness, then again, I am not responsible for curing them. My treatment method only removes hysterical pains. So, it almost seems as if I wanted my diagnosis to be wrong, because then the blame for the treatment’s failure would also be removed.

“I take her to the window and examine her throat. She shows some reluctance, like women who wear false teeth. I think to myself: but she has no need to.” I never actually had a reason to look into Irma’s mouth. The event in my dream reminds me of an examination I did some time ago on a governess. At first, she looked young and beautiful, but when she opened her mouth, she tried to hide her dentures. This brings to mind other medical examinations and the little secrets they reveal—which are often uncomfortable for both doctor and patient. The thought “But she has no need to” is, first of all, probably a compliment to Irma. But I also suspect another meaning. When you are carefully analyzing something, you get a feeling whether you’ve uncovered all the underlying thoughts or if there’s more. The way Irma stands at the window in the dream suddenly reminds me of another experience. Irma has a close female friend whom I respect very much. One evening when I visited this friend, I found her at the window in the same situation as in the dream. Her doctor, the same Dr. M. from the dream, was explaining that she had a diphtheritic membrane (a sign of diphtheria). Indeed, Dr. M. and this membrane reappear later in the dream. It now occurs to me that in recent months, I have had reasons to believe that this other lady was also a hysteric. In fact, Irma herself told me this. But what did I know about her condition? Only that, like the Irma in my dream, she suffered from hysterical choking. So, in the dream, I have replaced my patient, Irma, with her friend. Now I remember I have often thought that this lady, like Irma, might also ask me to help her get rid of her symptoms. But I thought it was very unlikely because she is very reserved. She “shows reluctance,” as the dream says. Another explanation for “she has no need to” could be that she has, so far, been strong enough to control her condition without outside help. Then there are other features—pale, puffy, false teeth—that I couldn’t connect to either Irma or her friend. The “false teeth” led me to the governess; I am inclined to think it simply means “bad teeth.” Then another person comes to mind to whom these features could refer. She is also not my patient, and I wouldn’t want her as one, as I’ve noticed she is shy around me, and I don’t think she would be an easy patient. She is usually pale, and on one occasion when she’d had a good time, she looked puffy. So, I have been comparing my patient Irma with two other people who would also be hesitant to undergo my treatment. What could be the meaning of exchanging Irma in my dream for her friend? Perhaps it is that I would like to exchange her. Either I have stronger feelings of sympathy for the other woman, or I have a higher opinion of her intelligence. I regard Irma as foolish because she doesn’t accept my solution. The other woman would be wiser and so would accept it sooner. Her mouth then “opens wide”: she would tell me more than Irma.

“What I see in the throat: a white patch and nostrils with scabs.” The white patch reminds me of diphtheria and therefore of Irma’s friend. But it also reminds me of the serious illness my eldest daughter had nearly two years before, and all the fear we went through during that terrible time. The scabs on the nostrils bring to mind a problem I once had with my own health. At that time, I frequently used cocaine to reduce bothersome swellings in my nose. A few days before the dream, I had heard that a female patient who did the same had developed an extensive dying off (necrosis) of the mucous membrane in her nose. My recommendation of cocaine, which I made in 1885, also brought severe criticism upon me. A dear friend, who had already died by 1895, had sped up his death by misusing this drug.

“I quickly call Dr M. over, who repeats the examination.” This would simply match the respected position Dr. M. held among us. But the word “quickly” is striking enough to need a special explanation. It reminds me of an unhappy medical experience I had. I once caused a severe poisoning in a female patient by repeatedly prescribing a drug (sulphonal) that was then considered harmless. I had to rush to my experienced older colleague for help. That this is indeed the case I’m thinking of is supported by another detail: the patient who died from the poisoning had the same first name as my eldest daughter, Mathilde. I had never thought of this coincidence before; now it seems almost like a punishment from fate—as if one Mathilde was substituted for the other, like “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” It feels as though I am looking for every opportunity to accuse myself of not being a careful enough doctor.

“Dr M. looks quite different from usual; he is very pale, walks with a limp, and his chin has no beard …” It is true that his friends were often concerned about how unwell Dr. M. looked; he was often pale. The other two characteristics—walking with a limp and having no beard—must belong to someone else. My elder brother comes to mind. He lives abroad, is clean-shaven, and, if I remember correctly, generally looked somewhat like the Dr. M. in the dream. A few days earlier, I had received news that he was walking with a limp due to arthritis in his hip. There must be a reason for me to merge these two people into one in my dream. I actually remember that I was annoyed with both of them at the time, and for a similar reason. Both had rejected a certain suggestion I had recently made to them.

“My friend Otto is now also standing beside her, and my friend Leopold is percussing her through her bodice, saying: She has an attenuation low to the left, also pointing out an infiltrated part of the skin on the left shoulder (which like him I felt, in spite of her dress) …” My friend Leopold is also a doctor and a relative of Otto. Since they both work in the same specialty, fate has made them rivals who are constantly being compared. Both of them assisted me for years when I ran a clinic for children with nervous disorders. Scenes like the one in the dream often happened there. While I was discussing a diagnosis with Otto, Leopold would have re-examined the child and offered an unexpected insight. They had different personalities, much like the fictional characters Inspector Bräsig (quick-witted) and his friend Karl (slow and thoughtful). One was known for his “quick thinking,” the other was slow, deliberate, but thorough. When I contrast Otto with the cautious Leopold in my dream, I am clearly doing so to praise Leopold. This is similar to how I compared Irma, the disobedient patient, with her friend, whom I considered wiser. I now notice another line of thought in the dream: from the sick child to the children’s clinic. The phrase “attenuation low to the left” (a sign of lung problems) gives me the impression that it refers to a particular case where Leopold impressed me with his thoroughness. I also vaguely have in mind something like a spreading infection (metastatic affection), but it might also relate to the patient I wish I had instead of Irma (her friend). For, as far as I can tell, this lady’s symptoms seem to imitate a lung condition like tuberculosis.

“An infiltrated part of the skin on the left shoulder.” I know immediately that this refers to my own rheumatic shoulder, which I regularly feel if I stay awake late into the night. The wording in the dream, “which like him I felt …” also sounds ambiguous. “To feel in oneself” is a common expression. It occurs to me, incidentally, how strange the description “an infiltrated part of the skin” sounds. “Infiltration in the upper left back” is a more familiar medical phrase, which would refer to the lung, and so again hints at tuberculosis.

“In spite of her dress.” This is certainly just a side comment. When we examined children at the clinic, they were naturally undressed. This is one of the contrasts to how we have to examine adult female patients. It used to be said of an excellent doctor that he only ever did physical examinations of his patients through their clothes. The rest of this thought is unclear to me, and, to be honest, I don’t feel like exploring it further.

“Dr M. says: It is an infection, but it doesn’t matter. Dysentery will set in and the poison be eliminated.” At first, this seems ridiculous to me, but like everything else in the dream, it must be carefully taken apart. Considered more closely, a kind of meaning does appear. What I discovered in the patient in the dream was a localized diphtheria. From the time my daughter was ill, I recall a discussion about the difference between diphtheritis (a local infection) and diphtheria (the general illness that starts with localized diphtheritis). Leopold, in the dream, indicated a general infection of this kind with his finding of “attenuation,” which makes one think of spreading infection sites (metastases). I believe, it’s true, that such metastases don’t actually occur in diphtheria. They remind me more of pyaemia (a type of blood poisoning). The phrase “It doesn’t matter” is a form of comfort. I believe it fits in like this: The last part of the dream suggests that the patient’s pains come from a serious physical infection. I sense that my main wish here is to shift the blame from myself. Psychological treatment cannot be held responsible for the persistence of a diphtheritic condition. But I still feel troubled at having invented a serious illness for Irma in the dream, purely to free myself from blame. It seems so cruel. So, I need some reassurance that everything will be alright, and it doesn’t seem like a bad choice to put this comfort into the mouth of Dr. M. himself. But in realizing this, I am placing myself in a position of understanding the dream’s strategy, a strategy which itself needs explaining.

But why is this comfort so nonsensical?

“Dysentery: some remote theoretical idea that diseased matter can be removed through the bowels.” Am I trying to make fun of Dr. M.’s many far-fetched explanations and unusual theories about how illnesses connect? Regarding dysentery, something else comes to mind. A few months before, I had taken on a young man as a patient who had very unusual difficulties with his bowels. Other colleagues of mine had treated him as a case of “anaemia with under-nourishment.” I recognized that it was a case of hysteria. I wanted to try my psychotherapy on him and sent him on a sea voyage. Now, a few days before the dream, I received a desperate letter from him in Egypt. He told me he had had a new attack there, which the doctor declared was dysentery. I suspected that the diagnosis was just an error by an ignorant colleague who was being fooled by the patient’s hysteria. Yet, I couldn’t help but reproach myself for putting my patient in a situation where he might have added a real physical illness to his hysterical bowel problems. Furthermore, “dysentery” sounded somewhat like “diphtheria,” a word that was under a kind of taboo and not mentioned directly in the dream.

Yes, it must be that with the comforting prediction, “Dysentery will set in, etc.,” I am making fun of Dr. M. I remember that he once told me, laughing, something quite similar about another colleague years before. Dr. M. had been called by this colleague for a consultation about a seriously sick patient. Dr. M. felt he had to point out to his colleague, who had seemed very hopeful, that he had found albumen (a protein) in the patient’s urine (a bad sign). But the colleague refused to be worried and calmly replied: “It doesn’t matter, my dear colleague, the albumen will be eliminated, you’ll see!” So, I am no longer in any doubt that this part of the dream contains mockery of those colleagues of mine who are ignorant about hysteria. As if to confirm this, the thought now passes through my mind: Does Dr. M. know that the symptoms shown by his patient, Irma’s friend (who also appears in my dream), which are causing fears of tuberculosis, also come from hysteria? Has he recognized this hysteria, or has he been “taken in” by it?

But what reason can I have for treating my friend Dr. M. so badly in the dream? It is very simple: Dr. M. disagrees with my “solution” for Irma just as much as Irma herself does. So, in this dream, I have already taken revenge on two people: on Irma with the words, “If you are still having pain it is really only your own fault,” and on Dr. M. by mocking him.

The dream continued, saying:

“We know immediately where the infection originated.” This sudden knowledge in the dream is very strange. Just moments before, in the dream, we didn’t know where the infection came from; Leopold had to point it out.

“When she felt unwell, my friend Otto gave her an injection.” This connects to something real. Otto had actually told me that while he was visiting Irma’s family, he was called to a nearby hotel. He had to give an injection to someone who suddenly felt sick. The idea of injections also reminds me again of my unfortunate friend who died from misusing cocaine. I had told him only to take the drug by mouth while trying to stop using morphine. But he started injecting it right away.

The dream mentions “a propyl preparation … propylene … propionic acid.” How did I come up with these names in the dream? On the evening I wrote Irma’s case history (the evening before the dream), my wife opened a bottle of liqueur. The label said “Ananas” (pineapple). It was a gift from our friend Otto. He often gives gifts. (I hope he finds a wife who can help him break this habit!) This liqueur smelled so much like cheap alcohol, like fusel oil, that I refused to drink it. My wife suggested giving it to the servants. But I, thinking of their well-being, said no, because they shouldn’t be poisoned either. The smell of alcohol (Amyl alcohol came to my mind) clearly triggered a series of chemical names in my memory: propylene, methyl, and so on. This is where the “propyl preparation” in the dream came from. It’s true I made a switch: I dreamed of “propyl” after smelling something that reminded me of “amyl.” But these kinds of substitutions might be more acceptable in organic chemistry than in other areas.

Then there’s “Trimethylamine.” In my dream, I actually see the chemical formula for this substance. This shows my memory was working hard. I see it printed in bold type, as if I wanted this particular thing to stand out as very important. So, what does trimethylamine lead me to? It reminds me of a conversation with another friend. He has followed my work for years, just as I have followed his. He had told me about his ideas on the chemistry of sex. He mentioned that he thought trimethylamine was one of the substances produced during sexual processes in the body. So, this chemical leads me to the topic of sexuality. I believe sexuality plays a very important role in causing the nervous problems I try to cure. My patient Irma is a young widow. If I’m looking for an excuse for why my treatment didn’t fully work, her widowhood is a factor I could point to – a situation her friends would like to see changed for her. It’s strange how dreams are put together! The other woman in the dream, the one who takes Irma’s place as my patient, is also a young widow.

I start to understand why the formula for trimethylamine was so prominent in the dream. Many important ideas connect to this one word:

Trimethylamine hints at the powerful factor of sexuality.
It also refers to the friend whose approval meant a lot to me when I felt alone and unsupported. I remember his support with gratitude.

It’s likely that this important friend would appear again in the dream’s train of thought. And he does:

He is an expert on problems related to the nose and sinuses.
He has shown science some very striking connections between the nostrils and the female sexual organs. (This relates to the three curled structures I saw in Irma’s dream-throat).

I once had Irma examined by this friend to see if her stomach pains might be coming from a problem in her nose. This friend himself suffers from infections in his nose (nasal abscesses) which worry me. The idea of “pyaemia” (blood poisoning), which came up earlier in connection with spreading infections in the dream, probably refers to my concern for him.

The dream includes the thought: “Such injections are not to be given so lightly.” This is a direct accusation of carelessness aimed at my friend Otto. I think I had a similar thought about him that afternoon when he seemed to be criticizing me with his words and his look. I thought something like: “He is so easily influenced; he makes decisions too quickly.” This sentence also points again to my dead friend, who rashly decided to inject himself with cocaine. As I’ve said, I never intended for him to inject the drug. When I criticize Otto in the dream for being careless with chemicals, I notice I am also touching on the story of the unfortunate patient Mathilde. That incident led to me being accused of the same kind of carelessness. It’s clear that in the dream, I am gathering examples of my own carefulness as a doctor, but also examples of the opposite.

The dream continues: “Probably the syringe was not clean, either.” This is another criticism of Otto, but it comes from a different source. Yesterday, I met the son of an 82-year-old lady. I have to give her two morphine injections daily. She is currently in the country, and I learned she is suffering from phlebitis (inflammation of a vein). I immediately thought that an infection from a dirty syringe must have caused it. I take pride in the fact that in two years, I haven’t caused a single infection from an injection. I am always very careful to make sure the syringe is clean. I am simply a conscientious doctor. The idea of phlebitis then reminds me of my wife, who had a blockage in her veins during a pregnancy. And now, three similar situations come to my mind involving my wife, Irma, and the dead patient Mathilde. The similarity of these situations seems to have given me permission in the dream to substitute these three women for one another.

What the Dream Means: A Wish Fulfilled

I have now finished interpreting the dream. During this work, it was hard to keep track of all the many ideas that came up when comparing the dream itself with the hidden thoughts behind it. As I worked, the “meaning” of the dream became clear. I saw that the dream had a purpose, an intention that it achieved. This intention must have been the reason for dreaming.

The dream fulfilled several wishes that were stirred up in me by the events of the previous evening (Otto’s news and my writing of the case history). The main outcome of the dream is this: I am not to blame for Irma’s continued suffering; Otto is to blame.

Otto had annoyed me with his comments about Irma’s incomplete recovery. The dream gets revenge on him for me by turning the criticism back onto him. The dream clears me of responsibility for Irma’s condition by blaming it on other factors (a whole list of reasons). The dream shows a certain situation as I wished it to be. Therefore, its content is a wish-fulfillment. Its motive for existing was a wish.

This much is obvious. But many other details of the dream also make sense when I see them as fulfilling wishes. I get my revenge on Otto in several ways:

For his careless criticism of me, the dream shows him giving a careless medical treatment (the injection).
For giving me the bad-smelling liqueur, the dream links this to the injection through the “propyl” chemical name.

I’m still not satisfied, so I continue my revenge by comparing him to his more reliable rival, Leopold. It’s like I’m saying, “I like Leopold better than you.” But Otto isn’t the only one I’m angry with in the dream.

I also get revenge on my disobedient patient, Irma, by replacing her with someone I think is wiser and easier to treat.
I don’t accept Dr. M.’s disagreement with me either. I clearly hint that I think he’s not qualified to judge the situation (with the “Dysentery will set in” comment).

In fact, it seems like I’m appealing to someone more competent than Dr. M. (my friend who told me about trimethylamine), just as I turned from Irma to her friend, and from Otto to Leopold. The dream seems to say: “Get rid of these people who criticize or disobey me! Replace them with three others I choose. Then I’ll be free of these accusations I don’t think I deserve!”

The dream shows in great detail how unfair these accusations are by offering many reasons why Irma’s continued pain is not my fault:

It’s Irma’s own fault because she rejected my solution.
Her illness is physical, not psychological, so my treatment couldn’t cure it anyway.
Her illness can be explained by her being a widow (the trimethylamine link to sexuality!), which I can’t change.
Her illness was caused by Otto giving her a careless injection with the wrong drug – something I would never do.
Her illness came from an injection with a dirty syringe, like the old lady’s phlebitis. My injections, however, are always clean.

I notice that these explanations for Irma’s illness, which all clear me of blame, don’t actually agree with each other. In fact, they contradict each other. The entire dream is like a legal defense. It reminds me of the story of a man accused by his neighbor of returning a damaged kettle:

First, he said the kettle wasn’t damaged at all.
Second, he said it already had a hole in it when he borrowed it.
And third, he said he never borrowed a kettle from his neighbor in the first place!

But that’s even better for my dream’s purpose: if just one of these defenses is believed, then the accused person (me) must be found not guilty.

Other topics are woven into the dream. Their connection to proving I’m not responsible for Irma’s illness is less obvious. These include: my daughter’s illness, the illness of my patient with the same name, the harmful effects of cocaine, my patient’s illness in Egypt, worries about the health of my wife, my brother, and Dr. M., my own physical problems, and concern for my absent friend with nasal infections.

But when I look closely, all these things are connected. They form a single group of ideas, perhaps under the heading: concern for health (my own and others’), and a doctor’s conscientiousness. I remember feeling vaguely uncomfortable when Otto told me about Irma’s condition. Looking back, using the ideas from my dream, I can describe that feeling more clearly. It was as if he had told me: “You don’t take your duties as a doctor seriously enough. You aren’t conscientious. You don’t deliver what you promise.” As a result, this whole group of health-related ideas became available to my dream. The dream used them to show how very conscientious I am, and how much I care about the health of my family, friends, and patients. Interestingly, this material also includes painful memories that could actually support Otto’s implied accusation, rather than clear my name. It’s as if the material itself doesn’t take sides. However, there is still a clear link between this broader raw material used by the dream and the dream’s narrower subject: my wish to be found innocent of blame for Irma’s illness.

The Dream’s Meaning and a New Insight

I don’t claim that I have found every single meaning in this dream or that my interpretation has no gaps. I could spend much more time on this dream, find more explanations, and discuss new puzzles it has raised. I myself know parts of the dream that could lead to more connections. However, the kinds of personal considerations that come up when analyzing one’s own dreams prevent me from going further with this interpretation right now. Anyone who wants to criticize me for holding back is welcome to try being more open than I have been.

For now, I am satisfied with this one new insight I have gained: If we use the method of dream interpretation I’ve described here, we find that dreams really do have a meaning. They are not, as the experts claim, just meaningless expressions of a brain working in bits and pieces. After the work of interpretation is done, the dream shows itself to be a wish-fulfillment.

III THE DREAM IS A WISH-FULFILMENT

A New Understanding and New Questions

Imagine you’ve been climbing a narrow, difficult path. Suddenly, you reach the top, and a wide, beautiful landscape with many new paths opens up before you. You might pause for a moment to decide which way to go next.

We are in a similar situation now that we have interpreted our first dream (the dream about Irma’s injection). We are standing in the clear light of a new understanding.

This understanding tells us that:

A dream is not like the random noise a musical instrument might make if it were hit by an outside force instead of played by a musician.
It is not meaningless or absurd.
It doesn’t mean that one part of our mind is asleep while another part starts to wake up.

Instead, a dream is a genuine and valid mental event. In fact, it is a wish-fulfillment. It should be included among the understandable mental activities of our waking lives. It has been put together by a very complex thinking process.

But just as we are about to celebrate this new knowledge, a lot of questions arise:

If a dream represents a fulfilled wish, as our interpretation suggests, why is this wish expressed in such a striking and confusing way?
What changes happen to our original “dream thoughts” to make them turn into the “manifest dream” – the dream we remember when we wake up?
How does this transformation happen?
Where does the material that is shaped into a dream come from?
What is the reason for the strange things we noticed about dream thoughts, like the fact that they can contradict each other (remember the kettle example)?
Can dreams teach us anything new about our inner mental processes? Can their content correct opinions we held during the day?

I plan to set aside all these questions for now and follow one specific path. We have learned that the dream we analyzed represents a wish as fulfilled. Our next task is to find out if this is a general characteristic of all dreams, or if it was just a chance feature of the “dream of Irma’s injection.”

Even if we expect every dream to have a meaning and mental value, we still have to consider the possibility that this meaning might not be the same in every dream. Our first dream was a wish-fulfillment. Perhaps another dream might turn out to be the fulfillment of a fear. A third might be a reflection or a thought. A fourth might simply be a memory being replayed.

So, the questions are: Are there other kinds of wishful dreams? Or, perhaps, are wishful dreams the only kind of dreams that exist?

Simple Dreams Show Clear Wish-Fulfillment

It’s easy to show that dreams often display wish-fulfillment very openly. This makes one wonder why the “language” of dreams wasn’t understood a long time ago.

Dreams of Convenience: Thirst For example, there’s a dream I can create for myself whenever I want, almost like an experiment. If I eat salty foods like anchovies or olives in the evening, I get thirsty during the night, and the thirst wakes me up. But before I wake up, I always have a dream with the same content: I am drinking. I gulp down water in big swallows, and it tastes incredibly delicious – as only a cool drink can when you’re very thirsty. Then I wake up and have to drink water in reality.

The reason for this simple dream is the thirst, which I notice when I wake up. This sensation creates the wish to drink, and the dream shows me this wish as fulfilled. In doing so, it serves a purpose I can easily guess. I am a good sleeper and not used to being woken by a physical need. If I can “quench” my thirst by dreaming that I am drinking, I don’t need to wake up to satisfy it. So, this is a dream of convenience. Dreaming replaces taking action, just as it can in other areas of life.

Unfortunately, the physical need for water cannot truly be satisfied by a dream, unlike my “thirst” for revenge on my friends Otto and Dr. M. in the Irma dream. But the intention and the wish to satisfy the need are the same.

Not long ago, I had a similar thirst dream, but in a slightly different form. I was thirsty even before I went to bed, so I drank the glass of water that was on the table next to my bed. A few hours later, thirst bothered me again. To get more water, I would have had to get up and fetch the glass from my wife’s bedside table. So, I dreamed that my wife was offering me a drink from a container. This container was an Etruscan urn, an ancient Italian vase, that I had brought home from a trip and had since given away. But the water in it tasted so salty (obviously from the idea of ashes in an urn) that I had to wake up.

You can see how conveniently the dream arranges things. Since its only goal is to fulfill a wish, it can be completely selfish. A love of comfort isn’t really compatible with thinking about others. The urn in the dream is probably another wish-fulfillment: I’m sorry I don’t own that vase anymore, just as the glass of water on my wife’s side of the bed is also out of my reach. The image of the urn, a container for ashes, also fits with the increasingly salty taste that I knew would force me to wake up.

More Dreams of Convenience When I was young, I often had dreams of convenience like these. I was used to working late into the night, so I always found it hard to wake up early. I used to dream that I was out of bed and standing at the washstand. After a while, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I hadn’t actually gotten up yet, but in the meantime, I had managed to sleep a little longer.

A young colleague, who seems to like sleeping as much as I do, told me about a similar “lazy dream” that was particularly clever. The landlady at the place where he lived near the hospital had strict orders to wake him up on time every morning, but she always had a hard time doing it. One morning, his sleep was especially deep and pleasant. The woman called into his room: “Get up, Mr. Pepi, you have to go to the hospital.” Immediately, the young man dreamed of a room in the hospital. He was lying in a bed, and on a sign above the bed, it said: “Pepi H., medical student, age 22.” He said to himself in the dream: “If I am already in the hospital, I don’t have to go there.” He then turned over and went back to sleep. By doing this, he had openly admitted to himself the motive behind his dream.

Here’s another dream where a physical sensation during sleep triggers the dream. One of my female patients had to have an operation on her jaw, which unfortunately was not successful. Her doctors told her to wear a cooling device on her sore cheek day and night. However, she had a habit of throwing it off as soon as she fell asleep. One day, I was asked to talk to her about this because she had thrown the device on the floor again. The patient explained: “This time I really couldn’t help it; it was because of a dream I had. In my dream, I was in a box at the opera, very interested in the performance. But Mr. Karl Meyer was in a health clinic, complaining terribly about pains in his jaw. I said to myself: since I don’t have the pains, I don’t need the device. That is why I threw it off.” This suffering patient’s dream sounds like a picture of a thought someone might have in an unpleasant situation: “I can think of more enjoyable things to do.” The dream shows this more enjoyable situation. Mr. Karl Meyer, the man onto whom the dreamer “gave” her pain in the dream, was the least attractive young man she knew.

Other Obvious Wish-Fulfillment Dreams

It’s just as easy to see wish-fulfillment in several other dreams I have collected from healthy people.

A friend who knows about my dream theory told his wife about it. One day, this friend said to me: “My wife asked me to tell you that yesterday she dreamed she had started her period. You will know what that means.” Indeed, I do. If the young woman dreamed she was having her period, it means she was actually missing it. I can imagine she would have liked to enjoy her freedom a little longer before the difficulties of motherhood began. Her dream was a clever way of announcing her first pregnancy.

Another friend wrote to tell me that his wife recently dreamed she saw spots of milk on the front of her blouse. This, too, is an announcement of a pregnancy, but not her first one. The young mother was wishing she might have more breast milk for her second child than she had for her first.

A young woman had been cut off from social life for several weeks while caring for her child who had an infectious illness. After the child recovered, she dreamed she was at a party. Famous authors like Alphonse Daudet, Bourget, Marcel Prévost, and others were there. They were all very charming to her and entertained her wonderfully. In her dream, these authors looked like their portraits. Marcel Prévost, whose portrait she had never seen, looked like the disinfection man who had come to fumigate the sickroom the day before. He had been the first visitor to enter the room in a long time. I think I can understand this dream perfectly. She was thinking: “Now at last, it is time for something more entertaining than this endless nursing!”

Children’s Dreams: The Simplest Wish-Fulfillments

This selection of dreams is perhaps enough to show that many different kinds of dreams are very frequently found that can only be understood as wish-fulfillments. These dreams often show their content openly, without disguise. Most of these are short and simple dreams, which is a pleasant change from the confused and elaborate dreams that have usually caught the attention of writers on the subject.

But it is worthwhile to spend some time looking at these simple dreams. We can expect that the simplest dreams of all will be children’s dreams, because their mental abilities are certainly less complex than those of adults. In my opinion, child psychology is set to do for adult psychology what the study of simpler animals has done for understanding the structure of more complex animals. Until now, not many serious steps have been taken to use child psychology in this way.

The dreams of small children are simple wish-fulfillments. Compared with the dreams of adults, they are not very interesting for solving complex puzzles. However, they are extremely valuable as proof that, in its deepest nature, a dream represents a wish-fulfillment. I have been able to collect a number of such dreams from what my own children have told me.

A Five-Year-Old Boy’s Mountain Dream An trip from Aussee to the beautiful village of Hallstatt in the summer of 1896 gave me two dreams, one from my daughter (then eight and a half) and one from a boy of five and a quarter. First, some background: that summer we were staying on a hill near Aussee. When the weather was fine, we had a glorious view of the Dachstein mountain. With a telescope, it was easy to see the Simony mountain lodge. The children repeatedly tried to see it through the telescope, though I don’t know how successful they were. Before the trip, I had told the children that Hallstatt was at the foot of the Dachstein. They were greatly looking forward to the day. From Hallstatt, we walked along a valley, and its changing views delighted the children. Only one of them, the five-year-old boy, gradually grew grumpy. Whenever a new mountain came into sight, he asked: “Is that the Dachstein?” I had to reply: “No, only a foothill.” After he asked this several times, he fell completely silent. He flatly refused to climb the path up to a waterfall. I thought he was just tired. But the next morning, he came to me, radiantly happy, and said: “Last night I dreamed we were at the Simony lodge.” Now I understood him. When I talked about the Dachstein, he had expected that on our trip to Hallstatt we were going to climb the mountain and get to see the lodge they had talked so much about. When he realized he was only being shown foothills and a waterfall, he felt cheated and became cross. The dream made up for this disappointment. I tried to find out the details of his dream, but they were few. “You walk up steps for six hours,” he said, as he had been told.

An Eight-Year-Old Girl’s Dream of Belonging and Chocolates My eight-and-a-half-year-old daughter also had wishes that needed to be satisfied by a dream. We had taken the twelve-year-old son of our neighbors, Emil, with us to Hallstatt. He was a polite little gentleman, and it seemed to me that my little lady already found him very attractive. The next morning, she told us her dream: “Just think, I dreamed that Emil is one of us. He calls you Papa and Mama, and sleeps with us in the big room just like our boys. Then Mama comes into the room and throws a handful of big chocolate bars wrapped in blue and green paper under our beds.” Her brothers, who apparently hadn’t inherited any skill in interpreting dreams, declared, just like the experts, “This dream is nonsense.” The girl defended at least part of the dream. It’s useful for understanding neuroses to learn which part: that Emil was one of us, that was nonsense, she said, but not the part about the chocolate bars. Now, I was puzzled about this very part concerning the chocolates. Their mother gave me the explanation. On the way home from the railway station, the children had stopped at a vending machine. They had wanted exactly those sorts of chocolate bars, wrapped in shiny metallic foil, which they knew the machine sold. Their mother had rightly decided that they had had enough wishes fulfilled for one day and left this wish for their dreams. I had missed this little scene. The part of the dream my daughter had dismissed as nonsense, I understood immediately. On the road, I had myself heard our well-mannered guest, Emil, asking the children to wait for “Papa” or “Mama” to catch up. The child’s dream had turned this temporary connection into a permanent adoption. Other forms of companionship than those mentioned in her dream, which she knew from her relationship with her brothers, were not yet part of her romantic feelings. Why the bars of chocolate were thrown under the beds could not, of course, be explained without asking the child more questions.

An Eight-Year-Old Girl’s Dream of Visited Places A friend of mine told me about a dream very similar to my boy’s. It concerned his eight-year-old daughter. Her father had taken several children on a walk to Dornbach with the plan of visiting the Rohrer mountain lodge. However, because it had grown too late, he had turned back, promising the children he would make it up to them another time. On the way back, they passed a sign pointing to a place called the Hameau. The children then wanted to be taken to the Hameau, but again, for the same reason, their father had to put them off with a promise of the trip for another day. The next morning, the eight-year-old girl told her father happily: “Papa, today I dreamed you were with us at the Rohrer lodge and on the Hameau.” So, her impatience had made her experience the fulfillment of her father’s promise in her dream.

A Three-Year-Old Girl’s Dream of a Lake Voyage Just as straightforward is another dream that the beautiful scenery of Aussee inspired in my daughter, then aged three and a quarter. The little girl had crossed the lake for the first time, and the boat trip had been far too short for her. When we reached the landing dock, she did not want to leave the boat and wept bitterly. The next morning she said: “Last night I went on the lake.” Let us hope the length of this dream-voyage gave her greater satisfaction.

An Eight-Year-Old Boy’s Heroic Fantasy Dream My eldest son, then eight years old, was already dreaming the fulfillment of his fantasies. He dreamed he was riding in a chariot with Achilles, and Diomedes was the charioteer. The day before, he had been very excited about the legends of Greece, which his elder sister had received as a present.

A Nineteen-Month-Old Girl’s Dream of Food (from Sleep-Talking) If I am right that when children talk in their sleep, this also counts as dreaming, then I can share one of the youngest dreams in my collection. My youngest daughter, nineteen months old at the time, vomited one morning. For that reason, she was given nothing to eat for the rest of the day. During the night that followed this day of fasting, we heard her cry out excitedly in her sleep: “Anna F.eud, Er(d)beer, Hochbeer, Eier(s)peis, Papp [strawberry, wild strawberry, scrambled eggs, mash].” At that time, she used her own name to express owning something. The menu she listed no doubt included everything that would have seemed to her like a desirable meal. The strawberries appearing in two variations was a protest against the family’s rules about her diet. This came from the fact—which she had very likely noticed—that the children’s nurse had blamed her sickness on eating too many strawberries. So, that is how she took her revenge in her dream for this annoying accusation.

If we think of childhood as a happy time because it doesn’t yet know sexual desire, we should not forget what a rich source of disappointment, doing without, and therefore dream-creation the other great life urges can be for children. Here is a second example. On my birthday, my twenty-two-month-old nephew was given the task of congratulating me and giving me a little basket of cherries. At that time of year, cherries are still among the earliest fruits. He seemed to find it difficult to do, because he kept saying, “There’s cherries in it,” and could not be persuaded to let go of the basket. But he was able to make up for this. Every morning until then, he used to tell his mother that he had dreamed of the “white soldier,” a guards officer in a cloak whom he once admired in the street.

The next day, after he had to give away the cherries for my birthday, he woke up and happily announced something that must have come from a dream: “Hermann ate all the cherries!” By “Hermann,” he probably meant himself in the dream, enjoying the cherries he couldn’t have in real life.

Even Proverbs Suggest Dreams Fulfill Wishes

I don’t know what animals dream about. However, one of my students told me a proverb that claims to know. The proverb asks: “What does a goose dream of?” The answer is: “Corn.” These two short sentences contain the entire theory that dreams are wish-fulfillments. The goose wishes for corn, so it dreams of corn.

We can now see that we could have found the quickest way to our theory about the hidden meaning of dreams if we had just paid attention to how people use language. It’s true that old sayings sometimes speak disrespectfully of dreams. For example, there’s a German saying, “Träume sind Schäume,” which means “dreams are froth” or “dreams are just fluff”—implying they are light and unimportant. This seems to agree with the scientific view at the time that often judged dreams as meaningless. But in everyday language, a dream is often seen as the sweet fulfiller of wishes. For example, when something wonderful happens that is better than we ever expected, we might happily exclaim, “I wouldn’t have imagined this in my wildest dreams!”

IV DREAM-DISTORTION

The Big Question: Are ALL Dreams Wish-Fulfillments?

Now, if I claim that wish-fulfillment is the meaning of each and every dream, and that therefore there are no other kinds of dreams besides wishful dreams, I am sure I will face strong disagreement.

People will likely object by saying: “It’s nothing new that some dreams can be understood as wish-fulfillments. Experts on the subject have known this for a long time.” They might also say: “But claiming that there are no other kinds of dreams besides wish-fulfilling ones is just another of those unsupported, sweeping statements you’ve been making lately to get attention.”

In fact, there are plenty of dreams that have very painful and embarrassing content, with no sign of wish-fulfillment. The philosopher Eduard von Hartmann, known for his pessimistic views, was perhaps most strongly against the theory of wish-fulfillment. He said something like this: “As for dreams, all the small miseries of our waking life also carry over into sleep. But the one thing that can partly make life bearable for an educated person – the enjoyment of science and art – does not.”

But even observers who are less pessimistic have pointed out that pain and unpleasantness seem to occur more frequently in dreams than pleasure. Writers like Scholz and Volkelt noted this. Indeed, two researchers, Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam, studied their own dreams and put numbers to it: they found that 58 percent of dreams were distressing, and only about 29 percent were clearly pleasant.

Besides these dreams that seem to extend our daily unpleasant feelings into sleep, there are also anxiety dreams. In these dreams, the most terrible of all unpleasant feelings grips us until we wake up. And it’s these kinds of anxiety dreams that often affect children, even though we have found their other dreams to be straightforward wish-fulfillments (like night terrors in children, discussed by writers like Debacker).

Anxiety dreams really do seem to make it impossible to say that all dreams are wish-fulfillments, as we concluded from the examples in the last chapter. In fact, anxiety dreams seem to make this whole idea look ridiculous.

Looking Deeper: Manifest vs. Latent Content

However, it’s not too hard to deal with these strong objections. We just need to remember one key thing: our theory is not based on what the dream appears to be on the surface (the manifest content). Instead, it’s based on the hidden thoughts and ideas (the latent content) that we uncover through interpretation.

Let’s compare the dream we see on the surface with the hidden thoughts behind it. It’s true that some dreams look very upsetting on the surface. But has anyone tried to interpret these dreams using our method? Has anyone tried to find their hidden thoughts? If not, then these objections don’t really affect our theory. It’s still possible that even upsetting dreams and anxiety dreams will turn out to be wish-fulfillments once we interpret them properly.

Sometimes in science, when one problem is hard to solve, it helps to add another problem to it. It’s like how it’s easier to crack two nuts by hitting them against each other, rather than trying to crack each one separately.

So, we have one question: How can upsetting dreams and anxiety dreams be wish-fulfillments? And from our earlier talks about dreams, we can add a second question: Why do dreams that have ordinary or unimportant content, which turn out to be wish-fulfillments, not show their meaning openly?

Think about the dream of Irma’s injection, which we analyzed in detail. On the surface, it wasn’t particularly upsetting. Through interpretation, we found it was clearly a wish-fulfillment. But why did it need interpretation at all? Why didn’t it just say what it meant directly? In fact, even the Irma dream didn’t initially seem like it was showing a fulfilled wish. You, the reader, probably didn’t see it that way at first, and neither did I before I analyzed it.

If we call this tendency of dreams to need explanation dream-distortion, then another question comes up: Where does this dream-distortion come from?

Our first thoughts about dream-distortion might lead to several possible answers. For example, we might think that during sleep, our minds simply can’t find the right way to express our dream thoughts clearly. However, analyzing certain dreams makes us consider a different reason for dream-distortion.

I would like to show you this with a second dream of my own. Again, this will mean sharing some personal details, but I believe a clear explanation of the problem will make this personal sacrifice worthwhile.

Another Dream Example: The “Uncle” Dream (Preamble)

In the spring of 1897, I learned that two professors at our university had recommended me for a position as an associate professor (professor extraordinarius). This news surprised me and made me very happy. It was a sign of recognition from two outstanding men, and it wasn’t due to any personal connections. However, I told myself right away that I shouldn’t expect anything to actually happen. In recent years, the government ministry had ignored similar recommendations. Several colleagues who were older than me and at least as deserving were still waiting in vain for their appointments. I had no reason to think I would be treated any differently. So, I privately decided to accept this outcome. As far as I know, I am not ambitious. I have a successful medical practice, even without the boost of a professor title. Besides, it wasn’t a case of sour grapes; the position was undoubtedly too high for me to reach.

One evening, a colleague visited me. He was a friend and one of those whose situation had served as a warning to me. He had been a candidate for promotion to professor for some time. In our society, this title makes a doctor seem like a demigod to patients. He was less resigned to waiting than I was and used to visit the ministry offices from time to time to push his case. He came to me straight from one of these visits. He told me that this time he had cornered a high official and asked him directly if the delay in his appointment wasn’t really due to religious considerations (meaning, because he was Jewish). The official had replied that, yes, given the current climate, His Excellency was not in a position to act at the moment, and so on. “Now at least I know where I stand,” my friend concluded. His story wasn’t new to me, but it did strengthen my own feeling of resignation. The same religious considerations also applied to my own case.

On the morning after this visit, I had the following dream. It was also remarkable for its structure. It consisted of two thoughts and two images, with one thought and image leading to the next. However, I will only describe the first half of the dream, as the other half isn’t relevant to why I’m reporting it.

The Dream (First Half)

A thought: My friend R. is my uncle. I feel great affection for him.
An image: I see R.’s face before me, but it looks changed. It seems longer, and a yellow beard around it is very clear.

(Then followed two other parts, another thought and another image, which I will ignore here.)

Interpreting the “Uncle” Dream

The interpretation of this dream went like this:

When I remembered the dream during the morning, I laughed out loud and said, “The dream is nonsense!” However, I couldn’t get rid of it. It stayed with me all day, until in the evening, I finally scolded myself: “If one of your patients told you a dream was ‘nonsense’ and had nothing more to say, you would tell them off. You would assume the dream hides an unpleasant story that they want to avoid acknowledging. Treat yourself the same way! Your view that the dream is nonsense only means you have an inner resistance to interpreting it. Don’t let that stop you.” So, I started the interpretation.

“My friend R. is my uncle.” What could this mean? I only have one uncle, Uncle Josef. His story was sad. More than thirty years ago, his desire for money led him to commit an act that was severely punishable by law, and he was punished for it. My father, whose hair turned grey with grief in just a few days, always used to say that Uncle Josef had never been a bad man, just a “numbskull” (a foolish person). That was the word he used. So, if my friend R. is my Uncle Josef in the dream, it means I’m thinking: R. is a numbskull. This thought is hardly believable and very unpleasant!

The Altered Face But then there’s the face I see in the dream: it’s longer, with a yellow beard. My Uncle Josef really did have a face like that, rather long, with a light-colored beard around it. My friend R. had very dark hair. But when dark-haired people start to go grey, their beards change color through an unpleasant series: first reddish-brown, then yellowish-brown, and only then definitely grey. My friend R.’s beard is now at this yellowish-brown stage – and so is mine, I realize with some dismay. So, the face in my dream is like a combination of my friend R.’s face and my uncle’s. It’s like one of those composite photographs made by Galton, where several faces are put onto one picture to show family resemblances. So, there’s no doubt: in the dream, I really am thinking my friend R. is a numbskull – like my Uncle Josef.

Why This Thought? At first, I have no idea why I’m making this connection, which I feel I have to resist. It doesn’t seem to fit well, because my uncle was a criminal, and my friend R. is a man of good character (except for a small fine he once got for knocking down an apprentice with his bicycle – but that’s too silly to be the reason for the comparison).

Connecting to Another Colleague, N. Then I remember another conversation I had a few days earlier with another colleague, N., about the same topic of professorships. I met N. in the street. He had also been recommended for a professorship, knew about my recommendation, and congratulated me. I firmly rejected his congratulations. “You of all people should not make that kind of joke,” I said, “for you have learned yourself what such proposals are worth.” He replied (perhaps not seriously), “You never know. And there’s a black mark against me. Don’t you know that a woman once made a legal complaint against me? I don’t need to tell you that the investigation was called off: it was a low attempt at blackmail, and I had my work cut out to save the blackmailer from being prosecuted herself. But perhaps the ministry is holding this affair against me so as not to approve my appointment. But you haven’t a stain on your character.”

The Dream’s Purpose Revealed There it is! Now I have the “criminal” element, and also the interpretation and purpose of my dream. My Uncle Josef (the numbskull and criminal) represents both my colleagues, R. and N., who haven’t been appointed professors. One (R.) is seen as a numbskull in the dream, and the other (N.) as a kind of “criminal” because of the complaint. I also know now why I need to see them this way in the dream. If religious reasons are why my friends R. and N. are being delayed, then my own appointment is also in doubt. But if I can blame their rejection on other grounds that don’t apply to me (like one being a numbskull and the other a “criminal”), then my own hopes for appointment remain safe. This is what my dream does. It makes R. a numbskull and N. a criminal. But I am neither of those things. So, the common problem between us (religious discrimination) is removed. I can look forward to my appointment as professor and avoid feeling that R.’s bad news from the ministry official also applies to me.

I need to continue with the interpretation. I don’t feel I’ve understood it completely yet. I’m still bothered by how easily I put down two respected colleagues in my dream just to keep my own path to a professorship open. However, I feel a bit less bad about this now that I understand how to value statements made in dreams. I would argue with anyone who said I really think R. is a numbskull or that I don’t believe N.’s story about the blackmail attempt. And, of course, I don’t believe Irma was dangerously infected by Otto with that chemical preparation in the other dream. In both dreams, what the dream is expressing is only my wish that things were that way. The statement that fulfills my wish sounds less ridiculous in this second dream (the “Uncle” dream) than in the first (Irma’s dream). In this second dream, the wish is built on some real facts, a bit like a well-made piece of slander that has “some truth to it.” For example, my friend R. did have one specialist professor vote against him at the time. And my friend N. unknowingly gave me the material to make him look bad himself. Nevertheless, I repeat, the dream still seems to need more explanation.

The Role of Affection in the Dream: Hiding the Truth

Now I remember another part of the dream I haven’t looked at yet. After I thought “R. is my uncle,” I felt a warm affection for him in the dream. Where does this feeling come from? I never felt affection for my Uncle Josef. My friend R. has been very dear to me for years, but if I expressed the level of fondness I felt in the dream, he’d be very surprised. This fondness in the dream feels false and exaggerated, just like my judgment of his intelligence when I combined him with my uncle – but exaggerated in the opposite direction.

Then, a new idea strikes me: The affection in the dream isn’t part of the hidden thoughts behind the dream. Instead, it opposes those thoughts. Its purpose is likely to hide the true interpretation of the dream from me. This is probably why I was so reluctant to interpret it at first, calling it “nonsense.” From my work with patients, I know that when someone dismisses something like this, it’s not a real judgment but an expression of an emotion – a desire to avoid something unpleasant. My little daughter does this: if she doesn’t want an apple, she’ll say it’s sour without even tasting it. When my patients do this, I know they are facing an idea they want to push away (repress). The same thing happened with my dream. I didn’t want to interpret it because it contained something I was resisting: the thought that “R. is a numbskull.” So, the affection I felt for R. in the dream doesn’t come from the hidden dream thought. It comes from my resistance to that thought. If my dream is twisted or distorted on this point compared to its hidden meaning – in fact, twisted into its opposite – then the affection shown in the dream causes this distortion. In other words, the distortion here is intentional, a way of pretending or disguising. The hidden thoughts in my dream contain a negative judgment of R. To prevent me from noticing this, the opposite feeling – tenderness towards him – appears in the dream.

Dream-Distortion as a General Principle

This insight could apply generally to all dreams. As we saw in Chapter III, some dreams are clearly undisguised wish-fulfillments. But when a wish-fulfillment is unrecognizable or disguised, it means there must have been some defensiveness against that wish. Because of this defensiveness, the wish could only express itself in a twisted or distorted way.

I can find a comparison for this mental process in social life. When do we see a similar distortion of someone’s true thoughts or feelings? It happens when one person has power, and another person has to be careful around them. The second person then distorts what they say or do, or, we could say, they pretend. The politeness I show every day is often this kind of pretense. When I interpret my dreams for you, the reader, I also have to use such distortions sometimes.

A poet once complained about this need for distortion, saying something like: “The best things you know, you can’t always tell to young people.”

A political writer who has to tell unpleasant truths to those in power is in a similar situation. If they speak openly, the ruler will silence them. So, the writer fears censorship and softens or distorts their opinions. Depending on how strict the censorship is, the writer might have to:

Avoid certain kinds of attacks.
Speak indirectly instead of plainly.
Hide their controversial views behind a harmless-looking disguise. For example, they might tell a story about officials in ancient China when they are really talking about current government officials.

The stricter the censorship, the more elaborate the disguise becomes, and often, the cleverer the ways the writer still manages to hint at the real meaning for the reader.

The dream then says: “We know immediately where the infection originated.” This feeling of suddenly knowing something in the dream is very strange. Just moments before in the dream, we didn’t know where the infection came from; Leopold had to point it out.

The dream mentions: “When she felt unwell, my friend Otto gave her an injection.” This connects to something real. Otto had actually told me that while he was visiting Irma’s family, he was called to a nearby hotel. He had to give an injection to someone who suddenly felt sick. The idea of injections also reminds me again of my unfortunate friend who died from misusing cocaine. I had told him only to take the drug by mouth while trying to stop using morphine. But he started injecting it right away.

I start to understand why the formula for trimethylamine was so prominent in the dream. Many important ideas connect to this one word:

Trimethylamine hints at the powerful factor of sexuality.
It also refers to the friend whose approval meant a lot to me when I felt alone and unsupported. I remember his support with gratitude.

It’s likely that this important friend would appear again in the dream’s train of thought. And he does:

He is an expert on problems related to the nose and sinuses.
He has shown science some very striking connections between the nostrils and the female sexual organs. (This relates to the three curled structures I saw in Irma’s dream-throat).

This much is obvious. But many other details of the dream also make sense when I see them as fulfilling wishes. I get my revenge on Otto in several ways:

For his careless criticism of me, the dream shows him giving a careless medical treatment (the injection).
For giving me the bad-smelling liqueur, the dream links this to the injection through the “propyl” chemical name.

I also get revenge on my disobedient patient, Irma, by replacing her with someone I think is wiser and easier to treat.
I don’t accept Dr. M.’s disagreement with me either. I clearly hint that I think he’s not qualified to judge the situation (with the “Dysentery will set in” comment).

The dream shows in great detail how unfair these accusations are by offering many reasons why Irma’s continued pain is not my fault:

It’s Irma’s own fault because she rejected my solution.
Her illness is physical, not psychological, so my treatment couldn’t cure it anyway.
Her illness can be explained by her being a widow (the trimethylamine link to sexuality!), which I can’t change.
Her illness was caused by Otto giving her a careless injection with the wrong drug – something I would never do.
Her illness came from an injection with a dirty syringe, like the old lady’s phlebitis. My injections, however, are always clean.

First, he said the kettle wasn’t damaged at all.
Second, he said it already had a hole in it when he borrowed it.
And third, he said he never borrowed a kettle from his neighbor in the first place!

But that’s even better for my dream’s purpose: if just one of these defenses is believed, then the accused person (me) must be found not guilty.

Challenging Cases: Distressing Dreams as Wish-Fulfillments

We still need to show, through careful analysis of each case, that dreams truly have a secret meaning which turns out to be a wish-fulfillment. So, I will choose some dreams that have upsetting content and try to analyze them. Some of these dreams are from patients with hysteria. Understanding them will require a long introduction and looking into the mental events related to hysteria. This makes reporting them difficult, but I can’t avoid it.

As I’ve said before, when I analyze someone with a psychological issue (a psychoneurotic), their dreams are often a topic of our talks. During these talks, I have to explain all the psychological ideas that helped me understand their symptoms. When I do this, my patients criticize me just as much as my professional colleagues might! One thing my patients very often object to is the idea that all their dreams are wish-fulfillments. They often share dreams that they believe prove my theory wrong. Here are a few examples.

The “Unfulfilled Wish” Dream: A Patient’s Challenge

A clever female patient started by saying, “You always say dreams are fulfilled wishes.” “Well, I’ll tell you a dream that was the exact opposite. In my dream, a wish I had was not fulfilled. How does that fit your theory?”

This was her dream:

“I want to host a dinner party, but I have nothing in the house except some smoked salmon.”
“I think about going shopping, but then I remember it’s Sunday afternoon, and all the shops are closed.”
“Then I want to call some delivery services, but the phone is broken.”
“So, I have to give up my wish to host a dinner party.”

Of course, I replied that only a proper analysis can determine the dream’s meaning. I did admit that, on the surface, the dream seemed logical and clear, and it looked like the opposite of a wish-fulfillment. But then I asked, “What events or thoughts from the day before led to this dream? You know that the trigger for a dream is always found in the experiences of the previous day.”

Analysis of the “Dinner Party” Dream

Husband’s Diet and Joke: The patient’s husband, a successful and respected butcher, had told her the day before that he was getting too fat. He planned to start losing weight. His plan: get up early, exercise, follow a strict diet, and most importantly, not accept any more invitations to dinner parties. She also mentioned, laughing, that her husband had recently met a painter. The painter wanted to paint him because he had such an expressive face. Her husband, however, joked rudely that the painter would probably prefer a pretty young girl’s rear end to his whole face.

Patient’s Feelings & Caviare: She told me she was very much in love with her husband and enjoyed teasing him. She had also asked him not to give her any caviare. What could this mean about the caviare? She explained that for a long time, she had wanted a roll with caviare every morning but felt it was too expensive. She knew her husband would get it for her immediately if she asked. But instead, she asked him not to give her any, so she could keep teasing him about it.

(This explanation about the caviare seemed weak to me. When people give unsatisfying reasons like this, it usually means there are hidden, unacknowledged motives. Think about experiments in hypnosis. Hypnotized people carry out instructions given to them while hypnotized, even after they wake up. If you ask them why they did it, they don’t say, “I don’t know.” Instead, they make up a reason that clearly isn’t the real one. It was likely something similar with my patient and the caviare. I noted that she seemed to need to create an unfulfilled wish for herself in her waking life. Her dream also shows a wish not coming true. But why would she want an unfulfilled wish?)

The Jealousy and the Friend’s Wish: The thoughts she had shared so far weren’t enough to interpret the dream. I pushed her for more. After a short pause (which usually means someone is overcoming a resistance to an idea), she continued. She said that the day before, she had visited a friend. She was actually jealous of this friend because her husband always praised this friend highly. Fortunately for my patient, this friend was very thin, and her husband liked women who were more full-figured. What did this thin friend talk about? Naturally, about her wish to gain some weight. The friend also asked my patient, “When are you going to invite us over again? The food at your house is always so good.”

The Dream’s True Meaning: Now the meaning of the dream is clear! I could tell my patient: “It’s as if, when you heard your friend’s request, you thought to yourself: Sure, I’ll invite you so you can eat a lot at my house, get fat, and become even more attractive to my husband! No way! I’d rather never host a dinner party again!” “The dream then tells you that you cannot host a dinner party. In this way, it fulfills your wish not to help your friend gain weight.” “Indeed, your husband’s plan to stop accepting dinner invitations to lose weight already told you that people get fat from the food served at social gatherings.”

The Smoked Salmon: The only thing missing was a connection to confirm this interpretation. And the smoked salmon in the dream was still unexplained. I asked her, “What made you think of the salmon in the dream?” She replied, “Smoked salmon is this friend’s favorite dish.” (I happened to know this friend as well, and I can confirm that she loves salmon just as much as my patient loves caviare.)

A Deeper Level: Identification with the Friend This same dream can also be interpreted in a different, more subtle way. A small detail even makes this second interpretation necessary. These two interpretations don’t contradict each other. They fit together and show a great example of how dreams, like other psychological issues, can have more than one meaning at the same time.

We remember that while my patient dreamed of her own wish being denied (the dinner party), she also made sure to have a denied wish in real life (the caviare she asked her husband not to give her). Her friend also had a wish – to get fatter. It wouldn’t be surprising if my patient had dreamed that her friend’s wish (to get fatter) would not be fulfilled. After all, that was my patient’s actual wish – that her friend wouldn’t gain weight. But instead of dreaming that, she dreams that her own wish (to host a dinner) isn’t fulfilled. The dream gets a new meaning if we understand that in the dream, she isn’t just herself. She might also be representing her friend. It’s as if she has put herself in her friend’s place, or, as we can say, she has identified with her.

In my opinion, this is what she really did. Creating the denied wish in her real life (the caviare) was a sign of this identification. But what is the meaning of this hysterical identification? To explain this, we need to go into more detail. Identification is a very important part of how hysterical symptoms work. It’s how patients can show, through their own symptoms, the experiences of many people, not just their own. It’s as if they suffer for a whole group of others and play all the parts in a drama using only their own resources.

Some might say this is just the “hysterical imitation” we already know about – the ability of people with hysteria to copy symptoms of others that have impressed them. It’s like empathy so strong it leads to copying. But that only describes the path the mental process takes. The mental act itself is more complicated. It involves an unconscious reasoning process. Here’s an example: A doctor in a hospital has a patient who has a certain kind of convulsion (seizure). Other patients are in the same room. The doctor wouldn’t be surprised if, one morning, other patients started having the same kind of hysterical attack. The doctor might just think, “The others saw it and copied it; that’s what we call psychological infection.” And that’s true. But psychological infection happens something like this: Patients usually know more about each other than the doctor knows about any one of them. They care about each other. If one patient has an attack, the others soon find out why – maybe a letter from home, or sadness about love. Their empathy is triggered. Then, an unconscious thought process happens within them: “If someone can have attacks like this from causes like these, then I too can have them, because I have similar reasons in my life.” If this thought became conscious, it might just lead to anxiety about getting a similar attack. But because it happens on a different, unconscious level of the mind, it ends with the person actually developing the symptom they feared. So, this identification is not just simple imitation. It’s like taking on something because you feel you have the same underlying cause. It expresses a “just like me” feeling and points to some shared factor that remains in the unconscious.

In hysteria, the shared factor that is most often expressed through identification is sexual. A woman with hysteria most easily identifies in her symptoms with people she has had sexual relations with, or who have sexual relations with the same partners as she has. (Language even reflects this idea: two lovers are said to be “one.”) In hysterical fantasies, just like in dreams, it’s enough for sexual relations to be thought about for identification to occur; they don’t have to be real.

So, my patient is simply following the rules of hysterical thinking when she expresses her jealousy of her friend (a jealousy she admits is unjustified) by putting herself in her friend’s place in the dream. She identifies with her friend by creating a similar symptom (the denied wish). One might explain this with a play on words: she is putting herself in her friend’s place in the dream because she feels her friend is trying to put herself in her place with her husband – because the friend would like to take her place in her husband’s affections.

Another Contradictory Dream: The Mother-in-Law

The objection to my dream theory was solved more simply with another patient, who was the cleverest of all my female dreamers. But it still followed the pattern: the non-fulfillment of one wish means the fulfillment of another. I had been discussing with her that dreams are wish-fulfillments. The next day, she told me a dream where she was traveling with her mother-in-law to the country house they were supposed to share. Now, I knew she had strongly resisted spending the summer with her mother-in-law. I also knew she had recently succeeded in avoiding this by renting a country house far away from her mother-in-law. The dream seemed to cancel out this desired solution. Wasn’t this the exact opposite of my theory that dreams fulfill wishes? Certainly. I just had to follow the dream’s logic to understand it. According to this dream, I was wrong (about my dream theory). So, it was her wish that I should be wrong, and the dream showed her this wish being fulfilled. However, this wish for me to be wrong (shown through the theme of the country house) really referred to a different, more serious issue. At that time, based on her analysis, I had concluded that something important related to her illness must have happened at a certain point in her life. She had denied it because she couldn’t remember anything. We soon found out that I was right about that past event. So, her wish in the dream for me to be wrong (shown by dreaming she was going to the country with her mother-in-law) actually corresponded to her understandable wish that those past events, which I was just beginning to suspect, had never really happened.

A Friend’s Dream: Lost Cases

I allowed myself to interpret a small incident involving a friend, without a full analysis, just based on a hunch. He had been my classmate for eight years in school. He once came to a lecture I gave to a small group about my new idea that dreams are wish-fulfillments. He went home and dreamed that he had lost all his legal cases (he was a lawyer). He then complained to me about it, suggesting it contradicted my theory. Publicly, I made the excuse, “You can’t win every case.” But privately, I thought: “I was top of our class for eight years, while he was more in the middle. Could it be that he still has a wish from those school days – a wish that I would, for once, make a complete fool of myself (with this new dream theory)?”

A Painful Dream: The Dead Nephew

Another patient, a young girl, told me a dream with a darker, more upsetting content. She also presented it as an objection to my theory of wishful dreams. She began: “You’ll remember that my sister now has only one son, Karl. She lost her older son, Otto, when I was still living with her. Otto was my favorite, and I was the one who mostly raised him. I like little Karl, but of course, not nearly as much as I loved Otto, who died.” “Well, last night I dreamed that I saw Karl lying dead in front of me. He was in his little coffin, his hands folded, with candles all around – in short, exactly like little Otto, whose death was such a terrible blow to me.” “Now tell me, what does that mean? You know me well enough. Am I so wicked that I wish my sister should lose the only child she has left? Or does the dream mean I wish Karl were dead instead of Otto, whom I loved so much?” I assured her that she could rule out that second interpretation (wishing Karl dead instead of Otto). After thinking for a short while, I was able to tell her the correct interpretation of the dream. She then confirmed it. I was able to do this because I was familiar with her entire personal history.

Continuing our discussion from the previous section about the patient who dreamed of her dead nephew, Karl:

Interpreting the “Dead Nephew Karl” Dream

Patient’s Background: The young girl had lost her parents when she was young and was raised by her much older sister. Among the people who visited her sister’s house, she met a man who made a lasting impression on her. For a while, it looked like their unstated relationship might lead to marriage. But her sister prevented this happy outcome for reasons that were never entirely clear. After they broke up, the man she loved stopped visiting the house. Some time after little Otto died (the nephew she had poured her affection into), the patient herself moved out to live independently. However, she couldn’t get over her feelings for her sister’s friend. Her pride made her avoid him, but she found it impossible to love any other men who came along. Whenever the man she loved (who was a writer or academic) announced a public lecture, she would always be in the audience. She also took any chance she could to see him from a distance.

Events Before the Dream: I remembered that the day before, she had told me this professor was going to a certain concert. She wanted to go too, just to see him again. This was the day before the dream. The concert was scheduled for the very day she told me the dream.

The Key to Interpretation: Knowing this, it was easy for me to figure out the correct interpretation. I asked her if she could remember anything specific that happened after little Otto’s death. She replied immediately: “Yes, certainly. The professor came back to the house after being away for a long time. I saw him again, standing beside little Otto’s coffin.” This was just what I expected.

The Dream’s Meaning (Wish-Fulfillment): So, I interpreted the dream like this: “If the other boy, Karl, were to die, the same thing would happen again. You would spend the day with your sister. The professor would surely come to offer his sympathy. And you would see him again under the same circumstances as before.” “The dream means nothing more than your wish to see him again – a wish you are fighting against inside yourself.” “I know you have a ticket for today’s concert in your purse. Your dream was a dream of impatience: it simply brought forward by a few hours the moment of seeing him, which is supposed to happen today.”

How the Wish Was Hidden: To hide her wish, she had obviously chosen a situation (a child’s death) where such romantic wishes are usually suppressed. It’s a situation where one is so full of sadness that one doesn’t usually think about love. And yet, it’s quite possible that even in the real situation by little Otto’s coffin – the boy she loved more – she had been unable to suppress her tender feelings for the visitor she had missed for so long.

The “Child in a Box” Dream

Another patient gave a different explanation for a similar kind of dream. She was a woman who had been known for her quick wit and cheerfulness in her younger years, and she still showed these qualities in the thoughts that came up during her therapy. In a long dream, it seemed to this lady that she saw her only daughter, a fifteen-year-old girl, lying dead in a box. She wanted to use this dream as an objection to my theory of wish-fulfillment. However, she herself suspected that the detail of the “box” must be a clue to a different understanding of the dream.

The Meaning of “Box”: During the analysis, she remembered that the previous evening, people had been discussing the English word “box.” They talked about its many German translations, like Schachtel (cardboard box), Loge (theatre box), Kasten (chest), and Ohrfeige (a slap or “box on the ear”). From other parts of the same dream, it became clear that she made a connection between the English “box” and the German word “Büchse” (which can mean a tin or can). She was then bothered by the memory that “Büchse” is also used as a crude slang term for female genitals. So, considering her understanding of anatomy, I could assume that the “child in the box” represented a child in the womb.

An Old Wish Fulfilled: Once she understood this, she no longer denied that the dream really did represent a wish of hers. Like many young women, she had not been happy when she found out she was pregnant with this daughter fifteen years earlier. She had admitted to herself more than once that she wished the child might die in her womb. In fact, during a fit of anger after a big fight with her husband, she had even hit her own body with her fists, trying to harm the child inside her. So, the dead child in the dream was truly a wish-fulfillment. But it was the fulfillment of a wish she had given up fifteen years ago. It’s not surprising that when a wish-fulfillment arrives so late, it’s no longer recognized as such. Too much has changed in the meantime, after all.

Dreams like the last two, which are about the death of a dear relative, belong to a group that we will look at again when we discuss “typical dreams.” I will be able to show there, with new examples, how all these dreams must be interpreted as wish-fulfillments, even though their content seems unwanted.

The following dream was not told to me by a patient but by an intelligent lawyer I know. He also told it to me intending to stop me from too quickly generalizing my theory about wishful dreams.

The Lawyer’s Dream: Arrested for Infanticide

The Dream: My informant said, “My dream is that I am arriving at my house with a lady on my arm. A closed carriage is waiting there. A man comes up to me, identifies himself as a police agent, and tells me to follow him. I only ask for time to put my affairs in order.” The lawyer then asked me, “Do you believe it is perhaps my wish to be arrested?”

My Initial Response & Questions: “Certainly not,” I had to admit. “Do you know what you were being arrested for?” I asked. He replied, “Yes, I believe it was for infanticide (killing an infant).” “Infanticide?” I said. “But you know that this is a crime usually only a mother can commit against her newborn child?” “That is true,” he agreed. “And what happened the evening before your dream?” I asked. “I’d rather not tell you; it’s a delicate matter,” he said. “I need to know, however, or we must give up on interpreting the dream.”

The Previous Night’s Events: “Well then, listen,” he said. “I spent the night not at my home but with a lady I care a lot about. When we woke up in the morning, we were intimate again. Then I went back to sleep and had the dream you know.” “Is the lady married?” I asked. “Yes.” “And you don’t want to have a child with her?” “No, no, that could expose our affair.” “So you don’t practice normal sexual intercourse?” “I am careful to withdraw before ejaculating (coitus interruptus).” “May I assume you had done this several times that night, and after doing it again in the morning, you were a little unsure whether you had succeeded in preventing pregnancy?” “That may well be so,” he admitted.

The Dream’s Wish-Fulfillment: “Then your dream is a wish-fulfillment,” I explained. “It gave you reassurance that you have not created a child, or, what is almost the same thing, that you had ‘killed’ a child by preventing its conception.”

Connections and Confirmations: “I can easily show you the connecting links. You’ll recall that a few days ago, we were talking about the difficulties of marriage. We discussed the inconsistency in society that allows contraception but punishes abortion once a fetus has formed.” “In connection with this, we also talked about the old medieval debate about when the soul enters the fetus, since murder could only be considered from that point on.” “You also surely know the disturbing poem by Lenau in which killing an infant and contraception are treated as similar things.” “Remarkably enough,” he said, “I happened to think of Lenau only this morning.” “That too is an echo of your dream,” I noted.

Another Small Wish Fulfilled: “And now I’ll show you a little secondary wish-fulfillment in your dream. You are arriving at your house with the lady on your arm. This means you are taking her home, instead of spending the night at her house, as you did in reality.”

Why the Unpleasant Form? “That the main wish-fulfillment in the dream hides itself in such an unpleasant form (being arrested) perhaps has more than one cause.” “From my essay on anxiety neurosis, you might know that I claim coitus interruptus is one of the causes of neurotic anxiety. It would fit with this if, after several acts of this kind, you were left with a feeling of unease which then became part of your dream.” “You also use this bad feeling to hide the wish-fulfillment from yourself.”

The Specific Crime: Infanticide: “By the way, doesn’t this also explain why you thought of infanticide? Why did you hit upon what is specifically a woman’s crime?” “I will confess,” he said, “that some years ago, I was involved in an affair like this. It was my fault that a girl tried to save herself from the consequences of our relationship by having an abortion. I had nothing to do with carrying it out, but for a long time, as you will understand, I was anxious that the matter might be discovered.” “I understand,” I said. “This memory provided a second reason for you to be troubled by your suspicion that you might have failed in your usual practice of withdrawal.”

A Physician’s Tax Dream

A young physician who heard me tell this lawyer’s dream story in one of my lectures must have felt it related to him personally. Soon after, he had a similar kind of dream, using the same pattern of thinking but with a different subject. The day before, he had filed his income tax return. It was completely honest because he had little income to report. He then dreamed that an acquaintance came from a meeting of the tax officials. The acquaintance told him that all the other tax returns had been approved, but his had caused widespread mistrust, and he would face a severe penalty. This dream is the barely hidden fulfillment of a wish: his wish to be considered a physician with a large income (which would naturally make his tax return seem suspicious if he declared little). By the way, this reminds me of the well-known story of a young girl. She is advised not to marry her suitor because he has a violent temper and would surely beat her. The girl replies, “If only he would beat me!” Her wish to be married is so strong that she is willing to accept the suggested troubles that might come with it, and even starts to wish for them.

Why Painful Dreams Are Still Wish-Fulfillments

I hope these examples are enough, for now, to make it believable that even dreams with painful content can be understood as wish-fulfillments. It’s also unlikely to be a coincidence that when these dreams are interpreted, we always find ourselves dealing with subjects people would rather not speak or think about. No doubt, the unpleasant feeling these dreams cause is the same as the dislike or aversion that usually stops us from dealing with or discussing such topics. It’s an aversion each of us has to overcome if we are forced to tackle these subjects. However, this unpleasant feeling that appears in dreams does not mean a wish isn’t present. Everyone has wishes they wouldn’t want to tell others, and wishes they prefer not to admit even to themselves.

On the other hand, we have good reason to connect the unpleasantness of all these dreams with the fact of dream distortion. We are also right to conclude that these dreams are distorted, and their wish-fulfillment disguised so much it’s hard to recognize, precisely because there is an aversion to the dream’s topic or the wish itself. There is also an intention to repress (push down) this wish. Dream-distortion, therefore, proves to be an act of censorship. So, if we take into account everything our analysis of unpleasant dreams has shown us, we should change our formula for what a dream is. It should now read: The dream is the (disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish.

What About Anxiety Dreams?

Now, we still have anxiety dreams left to consider. These are a special type of dream with upsetting content. People who are not familiar with these ideas will find it hardest to accept anxiety dreams as wishful dreams. However, I can deal with anxiety dreams very briefly here. The issue isn’t really a new problem about dreams themselves, but rather about understanding neurotic anxiety in general (anxiety related to psychological issues). The anxiety we feel in dreams only seems to be explained by what happens in the dream. If we interpret the dream’s content, we find that the anxiety in the dream is no more justified by the dream’s story than, for example, the anxiety of a phobia is justified by the object or situation the person is afraid of. It’s true, for instance, that you can fall out of a window, so it’s reasonable to be careful near one. But that doesn’t explain why someone with a phobia of windows feels such huge anxiety, an anxiety that haunts them far beyond any real danger. The same explanation works for both the phobia and the anxiety dream. In both cases, the anxiety is just “stuck onto” the idea that comes with it. The anxiety actually comes from a different source.

The Source of Anxiety: Because dream anxiety and neurotic anxiety are so closely connected, I must talk about neurotic anxiety here. In a short essay I wrote some time ago (“Anxiety Neurosis”), I argued that neurotic anxiety comes from a person’s sexual life. It corresponds to sexual energy (libido) that has been diverted from its goal and can’t find an outlet. This idea has proven more and more solid since then. From it, we can suggest that anxiety dreams are dreams with sexual content. In these dreams, the sexual energy (libido) that would normally accompany such content has been transformed into anxiety. We will have a chance later to support this claim by analyzing some dreams of patients with neuroses. As I continue to develop a theory of dreams, I will also come back to the causes of anxiety dreams and how they fit with the theory of wish-fulfillment.

V THE MATERIAL AND SOURCES OF DREAMS

New Questions About Dreams

When we analyzed the dream of Irma’s injection, we learned that dreams are wish-fulfillments. Our main interest then was to see if this was true for all dreams. For a while, we put aside other scientific questions that came up during that interpretation.

Now that we’ve explored that path, we can go back. We can choose a new starting point to look into other dream problems. We might temporarily lose sight of the wish-fulfillment idea, but we are definitely not done with it.

Using our method of dream interpretation, we’ve discovered that there’s a hidden dream content (latent content). This hidden content is much more important than what appears on the surface of the dream (manifest content). Because of this discovery, it’s important to look again at the separate problems of dreams. We want to see if puzzles and contradictions that seemed impossible to solve when we only knew the surface content of dreams can now be understood.

Puzzling Features of Dream Memory

In the introduction, we already talked a lot about what experts have said. They discussed the connection between dreams and waking life, and where dream material comes from.

Let’s also remember three special features of dream memory. People have often noticed these, but they’ve never been explained:

Dreams clearly prefer to use impressions from the days just before the dream. (Writers like Robert, Strümpell, Hildebrandt, and Weed-Hallam pointed this out).
Dreams choose material differently than our waking memory does. They remember unimportant and unnoticed things, not what is vital and significant.
Dreams can access our earliest childhood memories. They can even bring up tiny details from this time in our lives – details that seem unimportant to us now and that we thought we had forgotten long ago.

These unusual ways dreams select their material were, of course, observed by experts when they looked at the surface content (manifest content) of dreams.

(a) Recent and Unimportant Material in Dreams

If I look at my own experience with where dream content comes from, I must first agree with the idea that every dream contains a reference to events from the day just before it. Whichever dream I choose, whether it’s one of my own or someone else’s, this connection is always there.

Knowing this, I can start interpreting a dream by first looking for the experience from the previous day that triggered it. In many cases, this is the quickest way to begin. In the two dreams I analyzed closely earlier (Irma’s injection and my uncle with the yellow beard), the connection to the previous day is so clear that it needs no more explanation.

But to show how regularly this connection can be found, I want to look at some examples from my own dream records. I will only report enough of the dream to show the source we are looking for.

Dream 1: I am visiting a house and have trouble getting in. Meanwhile, I keep a woman waiting.
- Source: A conversation the evening before with a relative. She said she would have to wait for something she wanted to buy.
Dream 2: I have written a detailed study (a monograph) on a certain type of plant (it’s unclear which one).
- Source: In the morning, I saw a book in a shop window about cyclamen flowers, which was a monograph on that plant.
Dream 3: I see two women in the street, a mother and daughter. The daughter is a patient of mine.
- Source: A patient I was treating told me in the evening about difficulties her mother was causing for her continued treatment.
Dream 4: At the bookshop of S. and R., I subscribe to a magazine that costs 20 florins a year.
- Source: During the day, my wife reminded me that I still owed her 20 florins for household expenses.
Dream 5: I receive a letter from the Social Democrats’ committee that treats me like I’m a member.
- Source: I received letters at the same time from both the Liberal political committee and from the board of the Humanitarian Society, of which I actually am a member.
Dream 6: A man is standing on a steep rock in the middle of the sea, in the style of the artist Böcklin.
- Source: News about Dreyfus on Devil’s Island, and at the same time, news from my relatives in England.

One might wonder if dreams always relate to events of the very last day, or if they can connect to impressions from a few days earlier. This probably isn’t a strict rule, but I personally believe that the day just before the dream (the dream-day) is uniquely important.

Whenever I thought a dream came from an impression from two or three days ago, a closer look always showed me something interesting. I found that I had actually remembered that older impression on the dream-day itself. So, a recall of the older memory happened between the original event and the dream. What’s more, I could usually identify a recent event that triggered this recall of the older impression.

So, in my view, every dream is sparked by experiences “we have not yet slept on” – meaning, experiences from the day immediately before the dream.

Therefore, impressions from a few days ago (but not the very last day) are treated by the dream just like impressions from much further in the past. The dream can choose its material from any time in our lives, as long as there’s a chain of thoughts connecting the experiences of the dream-day (the recent impressions) back to these older experiences.

But why do we prefer recent impressions? This point will become clearer if we look at one of the dreams mentioned above in more detail. I shall choose the dream about the monograph.

A Deeper Look: The “Botanical Monograph” Dream

Dream Content: I have written a monograph on a certain plant. The book is lying in front of me. I am just turning to a colored plate (illustration) inserted into it. Each illustration has a dried specimen of the plant attached to it, like in a herbarium (a collection of dried plants).

Analysis:

The Starting Point: Cyclamen In the morning, I saw a new book in a shop window titled “The Genus Cyclamen.” It was clearly a detailed study (a monograph) on this plant. Cyclamen is my wife’s favorite flower. This reminds me that I feel bad for so rarely thinking to bring her flowers, which would please her. Speaking of bringing flowers, I recall a story I recently told friends. It supports my idea that forgetting things is often a sign of an unconscious intention. A young woman’s husband forgot her birthday flowers, and she burst into tears, seeing it as proof he didn’t care as much. (Two days ago, my wife met this woman, Frau L., who asked about me. I used to be her doctor.)

A Real Monograph: The Coca Plant Another thought: I actually did write something like a monograph on a plant once. It was an essay on the coca plant. This essay drew K. Koller’s attention to the numbing properties of cocaine. I had mentioned this use of cocaine in my publication but wasn’t thorough enough to explore it further. This reminds me that on the morning after the dream (I only had time to interpret it in the evening), I was daydreaming about cocaine. I imagined that if I ever got glaucoma (an eye disease), I would go to Berlin. I’d have an operation there secretly, in the clinic of my Berlin friend, by a surgeon he recommended. The surgeon, not knowing who I was, would praise how easy these operations had become since cocaine was introduced. I wouldn’t say a word about my part in this discovery. This fantasy was followed by thoughts about how awkward it is for a doctor to ask for medical treatment from colleagues. I would be able to pay the Berlin eye doctor, who doesn’t know me, just like any other patient.

A Hidden Memory: My Father’s Operation Only after remembering this daydream do I realize there’s a specific memory hidden behind it. Shortly after Koller’s discovery, my father developed glaucoma. He was operated on by my friend, the eye specialist Dr. Königstein. Dr. Koller administered the cocaine anesthesia. It was remarked at the time that all three people who played a part in introducing cocaine found themselves together on this occasion.

Recent Reminders: The Festschrift and Dr. Königstein My thoughts then move to when I was last reminded of this cocaine story. It was a few days ago. I received a special publication (a Festschrift) celebrating the 50th birthday of a respected teacher. Among the achievements of his laboratory, it mentioned that K. Koller discovered the numbing property of cocaine there. Suddenly, I realize my dream is connected to an event from the previous evening. I had walked home with none other than Dr. Königstein himself! We had been discussing a matter that always interests me deeply whenever it comes up. As I was talking with him in the hallway, Professor Gärtner (who, by the way, was one of the authors in that Festschrift) and his young wife came up. I couldn’t resist congratulating them on how well they both looked. This probably made me think of the Festschrift again. Frau L. (the lady from the forgotten birthday flowers story) had also been mentioned in my conversation with Dr. Königstein, though in a different context.

The Herbarium and Botany In the dream, a dried plant specimen was included in the monograph, like in a herbarium. This brings back a memory from my school days. Our headmaster once asked the top students to check and clean the school’s herbarium because little worms – bookworms – had been found in it. He didn’t seem to trust my help much, as he only gave me a few pages to deal with. I can still remember they contained plants called crucifers. I was never very interested in botany. At my botany exam, I was again given a crucifer to identify and couldn’t recognize it. I would have failed if my theoretical knowledge hadn’t helped me out. From crucifers, my mind jumps to compositae (another plant family). Actually, the artichoke is a composita, and I might call it my favorite flower. My wife, more thoughtful than I, often brings me these favorite flowers from the market.

Seeing the Monograph Before Me In the dream, I see the monograph I have written lying before me. This is also relevant. My friend in Berlin, who has a strong visual imagination, wrote to me yesterday: “I am very involved with your dream-book. I can see it lying finished before me, and I am turning its pages.” How I envied him this ability to foresee things! If only I could see my book finished before me!

The Colored Plate and Childhood The dream mentioned a folded-in colored plate. When I was a medical student, I had a strong urge to learn only from detailed studies (monographs). Even though I had limited money, I owned sets of several medical journals, and I loved their colored plates. I was proud of this desire for thoroughness. When I started publishing my own work, I had to draw the illustrations for my papers myself. I know that one of them turned out so poorly that a kind colleague laughed at me because of it. On top of that, for some reason, a memory from my very early childhood comes to me. My father once amused himself by giving a book with colored plates (about travels in Persia) to me and my eldest sister for us to destroy. This was hardly a justifiable way to educate young children! I was five years old then, and my sister was not yet three. The picture of us children happily tearing this book to pieces (leaf by leaf, like an artichoke, I must add) is almost the only clear memory I still have from that time of my life. Then, when I became a student, I developed a strong preference for collecting and owning books. This was similar to my liking for studying from monographs – a hobbyist’s enjoyment, like my thoughts about cyclamen and artichokes in the dream. I became a bookworm (connecting back to the herbarium memory). Ever since I began to think about myself, I have always traced this first passion of my life back to this childhood impression. Or rather, I recognized that this childhood scene was a “screen memory” – a memory that hides or stands in for my later love of books. Naturally, I learned very early that passions today can mean sorrow tomorrow. When I was seventeen, I owed a lot of money to a bookseller and had no way to pay it. My father was not willing to accept my excuse that my interests hadn’t been for anything worse. However, mentioning this experience from my later youth brings me right back to the conversation with my friend Dr. Königstein. The same criticism as before – that I devoted myself too much to enjoying my hobbies – was also the subject of our conversation on the evening of the dream-day.

Putting It All Together: The Dream’s True Source

For reasons I won’t go into here, I will not continue interpreting this dream fully. I will just point the way towards its meaning. During the interpretation, I keep being reminded of my conversation with Dr. Königstein – in fact, more than one part of it. If I keep in mind the topics we discussed, the meaning of the dream becomes clear. All the trains of thought the dream started – my wife’s particular enjoyments and my own, cocaine, the difficulties of doctors treating colleagues, my preference for detailed studies, and my neglect of subjects like botany – all these connect and come together in one of the many branches of our wide-ranging conversation. The dream again takes on the character of a justification, a plea for myself, much like the dream of Irma’s injection that we just analyzed. Indeed, it was a continuation of the theme started in that earlier dream, but using new material that had come up in the time between the two dreams. Even the dream’s seemingly neutral way of expressing itself takes on a certain tone. Now the implication is: “But I am the man who wrote that valuable and successful study (on cocaine),” just as in the earlier dream I was protesting, “But I am an excellent and hardworking student.” In both cases, the message is: “I am justified in claiming this.”

However, I can stop interpreting the dream at this point. My only reason for telling it was to use it as an example to explore the relationship between what a dream shows on the surface and the experience from the previous day that triggered it. As long as I only know the surface content of this dream, all I can see is a link between the dream and one daytime impression (seeing the book in the shop window). But after I do the analysis, it turns out the dream has a second source: another experience from the same day (the important conversation with Dr. Königstein). The first of these impressions was unimportant, a triviality: I see a book in a shop window, notice its title briefly, and its contents hardly interest me. The second experience was very mentally significant: I had an eager conversation with my friend, the eye specialist, for what must have been an hour. I made suggestions to him that would affect us both. This conversation also stirred up memories in me that made me aware of many unsettling things within myself. What’s more, this conversation was cut short when acquaintances came over. Now, how are these two daytime impressions – the trivial one and the significant one – related to each other and to the dream I had that night?

In the surface content of the dream, I can only find one link to the trivial impression (the book in the window). This confirms that dreams do prefer to include unimportant elements from our lives in what they show us. In the dream interpretation, however, everything leads back to the significant experience (the conversation with Dr. Königstein) that had rightly stirred my emotions. If I judge the dream’s meaning based on its hidden (latent) content revealed by analysis – which is the only correct way to do it – I suddenly arrive at a new and important insight. The puzzle of why dreams seem so concerned with worthless bits and pieces of daily life disappears before my eyes. I must also disagree with the claim that our waking mental life does not continue into our dreams. And I must disagree that dreams waste their mental energy on foolish material. The opposite is true: Whatever has captured our attention during the day also directs the thoughts of our dreams. We only go to the trouble of dreaming about material that would have given us food for thought during our waking hours.

Why Do Dreams Use Trivial Details?

There’s a clear reason why my dreams keep focusing on unimportant impressions from the day, even when a truly important event is what actually made me dream. It’s likely another example of dream-distortion. We’ve already linked dream-distortion to a mental force that acts like a censor.

My memory of the plant monograph is used in the dream as if it’s a hint or reference to my conversation with my eye-specialist friend. This is much like the “smoked salmon” in the dinner-party dream referred to the patient’s friend. But the question is: what are the connecting links? How could the unimportant impression of the monograph become a hint for the important conversation with the eye specialist? The connection isn’t obvious at first. In the dinner-party dream, the link was already there: “smoked salmon” was the friend’s favorite dish, so it naturally connected to thoughts about the friend. In our new example (the monograph dream), we have two separate impressions. At first, they have nothing in common except that they happened on the same day. I saw the monograph in the morning, and I had the conversation in the evening. The analysis gives us this answer: connections between these two kinds of impressions, which weren’t there at first, are created after the fact (retroactively). Ideas from one impression get linked to ideas from the other. I’ve already pointed out these links when I described the dream analysis. Without some other influence, the idea of the cyclamen monograph would probably only have connected to the thought that it was my wife’s favorite flower. It might also have linked to the memory of the bouquet Frau L. didn’t receive. I don’t believe these background thoughts alone would have been strong enough to create a dream.

You don’t need a ghost to tell you something obvious, as it says in the play Hamlet. But look: in the analysis, I am reminded that the man who interrupted our important conversation was named Gärtner (which means “gardener” in German). I also thought his wife looked “blooming” (like a flower). Indeed, I only now remember that one of my patients, who had the lovely name Flora, was a main topic of our conversation for a while. What must have happened is that these connecting thoughts from the world of plants (botany) created a link between the two experiences of the day: the unimportant one (the monograph) and the one that actually started the dream (the conversation). Then, other connections appeared involving cocaine. Cocaine can quite naturally link Dr. Königstein (who was involved in its medical use) and a botanical study I wrote (on the coca plant). These connections strengthen the merging of the two sets of ideas into one. This allowed an element from the first, unimportant impression (the monograph) to be used as a hint for the second, important one (the conversation).

I expect some people will say this explanation is random or forced. They might ask: “What if Professor Gärtner and his ‘blooming’ wife hadn’t shown up? What if the patient we talked about was named Anna instead of Flora?” But the answer is simple. If these specific thought-connections hadn’t been available, other connections would probably have been chosen. It’s very easy for our minds to create these kinds of links. The riddles and puzzles we enjoy during the day show this clearly. Wit and humor can connect almost anything. To take it a step further: if enough varied connections couldn’t be made between these two particular impressions from the day (the monograph and the conversation), then the dream would have simply been different. Some other unimportant daytime impression – the kind that we experience all the time and then forget – would have taken the place of the “monograph” in the dream. This other impression would have managed to connect with the important conversation and would have represented it in the dream. Since the monograph impression was the one used, it must have been the most suitable one for creating this link. We don’t need to be amazed by this, just like the character Hänschen Schlau in a story by Lessing shouldn’t be amazed “that it is only the wealthy people in this world who have the most money.” (It’s an obvious outcome given the conditions).

How Unimportant Things Gain Importance in Dreams: Displacement

The mental process where an unimportant experience comes to represent an important one must still seem surprising and confusing. Later, we will try to understand this seemingly irrational process better. But for now, we are focused on the result of this process. Countless experiences during dream analysis push us to accept this as a basic assumption.

The process itself is like a displacement, or a shift, of mental importance. It happens through connecting links. Ideas that were initially weak in emotional energy borrow energy from ideas that were initially more emotionally charged. By borrowing this energy, the weak ideas gain enough power to force their way into our consciousness (in the dream).

We are not at all surprised by these kinds of shifts when it comes to emotions or actions:

A lonely older woman who gives all her affection to animals.
A single man who becomes a passionate collector of objects.
A soldier who defends a piece of colored cloth (the flag) with his life.
The intense joy a lover feels from a brief handclasp.
The furious rage Othello feels over a lost handkerchief. These are all clear examples of mental displacement that we easily accept.

But when the same kinds of shifts and principles decide what thoughts enter our consciousness and what thoughts are kept out – in other words, what we think – it strikes us as unhealthy or abnormal. When this happens in waking life, we call it a flaw in reasoning. Let me share a conclusion from later discussions right now: This mental process of displacement that we see in dreams will turn out not to be a disturbed or unhealthy process. Instead, it’s a process that is different from our normal waking thought, a more basic or primary kind of mental activity.

So, we understand the fact that dream content includes leftover bits of unimportant experiences as a sign of dream-distortion (which happens through displacement). And we remember that we recognized dream-distortion as the result of a censorship that controls what passes between two mental systems or agencies. Therefore, we expect that analyzing a dream will always show us the real, mentally important source of the dream from the previous day. Even though our memory of this real source has shifted its importance onto an unimportant one in the dream itself.

Conflict with Robert’s Theory This view puts us in complete conflict with Robert’s theory about dreams, which we now find quite unusable. The “fact” that Robert wanted to explain (that dreams are primarily about trivial leftover impressions) simply doesn’t exist as he thought. His assumption rests on a misunderstanding. He failed to replace the surface dream content with the real, hidden meaning of the dream.

Further Objection to Robert’s Theory There’s another problem with Robert’s theory. If dreams really had the job of removing the “dross” (useless bits) of our daily memories through a special mental activity, our sleep would have to be much more disturbed and hardworking than our waking mental life. This is because the number of unimportant daytime impressions we’d need to protect our memory from is incredibly large. The night would be too short to deal with all of them. It’s far more likely that we forget unimportant impressions without needing any active effort from our minds.

Still, something tells us not to dismiss Robert’s ideas completely without more thought. We haven’t yet explained why one of the unimportant impressions from the day – specifically, from the most recent day – always contributes something to the dream’s content. The connections between this recent impression and the actual source of the dream in the Unconscious are not always there from the beginning. As we’ve seen, these connections are often made during the dream-work process itself, after the fact, to help with the intended displacement. So, there must be some kind of pressure that pushes the dream to make connections with these recent, even if unimportant, impressions. These recent impressions must have some quality that makes them especially good for this purpose. Otherwise, it would be just as easy for the dream thoughts to shift their importance onto an unimportant part of their own existing ideas.

Dreams Like to Create Unity

At this point, the following experiences might help us understand better. If a single day has given us two or more experiences that could start a dream, the dream will try to combine references to both of them into one single story. It seems to feel a need to create a unified whole out of them.

Example: The Train Journey Dream For instance, one summer afternoon, I got into a train carriage. There, I met two acquaintances who didn’t know each other. One was an influential colleague. The other was from an aristocratic family for whom I was a doctor. I introduced them. But during the long journey, they talked through me. I had to talk first with one, then with the other. I asked my colleague to recommend a mutual acquaintance, a young doctor who was just starting his practice. My colleague said he thought the young man was a good doctor, but his unattractive appearance would make it hard for him to get into high-class homes. I replied, “That’s exactly why he needs a recommendation!” Soon after, I asked my other travel companion how his aunt was doing. She was the mother of one of my patients and was very ill at the time. During the night after this journey, I had a dream:

The young friend I had asked my colleague to help was in an elegant living room. He was with a distinguished group of wealthy people I knew (whom I had gathered in the dream).
With great confidence, like a man of the world, he was giving a funeral speech for the old lady – the aunt of my travel companion. (For the sake of the dream, she had conveniently died. I must admit, I was not on good terms with her.) So, once again, my dream had made connections between two different daytime impressions and created a single, unified situation from them.

Based on many similar experiences, I suggest this idea: The dream-work process seems to feel a strong urge or compulsion to combine all available dream-starting triggers into a single, unified dream.

What Can Start a Dream?

Now I want to discuss a question: Does the dream-starting source, which analysis helps us find, always have to be a recent and important external event? Or can an inner experience – like a memory or an important thought – also start a dream? The very clear answer from many dream analyses is yes, the second option is possible. The starter of a dream can be an inner mental process. This inner process can become “recent,” in a way, if the dreamer has been actively thinking about it during the day. This is probably a good time to list the different kinds of things that can be recognized as sources of dreams.

A dream can start from:

(a) A recent and mentally important experience. This experience is shown directly in the dream.
(b) Several recent and important experiences. The dream combines these into a single story.
(c) One or more recent and important experiences. These are shown in the dream’s content by referring to an unimportant experience that happened around the same time.
(d) An important inner experience (like a memory or a line of thought). This is then shown in the dream by referring to a recent but unimportant impression.

As we can see, one rule always applies for interpreting dreams: Part of the dream’s content is always a repetition of a recent impression from the day before. This recent part acts as a kind of stand-in or “proxy” in the dream. This proxy can either be directly part of the main idea that started the dream (whether an essential or unimportant part of it). Or, it can come from an unimportant impression that has been linked to the dream-starting idea through a network of connections, sometimes simple, sometimes complex. The different types of dream sources listed above (a through d) just seem varied because of whether displacement (the shift of importance) has happened or not. It’s interesting to note here that these different possibilities offer a simple explanation for the wide range of contrasts we see between dreams. This is similar to how the physical theory of dreams uses the idea of brain cells being partly or fully awake to explain dream variations.

Something else to note about this list of dream sources: For creating a dream, an idea that is mentally important but not recent (like a line of thought or a memory) can be represented by something recent but mentally unimportant. This can happen as long as two conditions are met:

The dream’s content still refers to the recent experience.
The actual trigger for the dream is still a mentally important event or thought. Only in the first case we listed (type ‘a’) are both these conditions met by the same single impression.

Also, consider this: the same unimportant impressions that a dream uses when they are recent lose their usefulness for dream-making as soon as they are a day or a few days older. This suggests that the very freshness of an impression gives it a certain mental value for creating dreams. This value is somehow similar to the value of emotionally charged memories or thoughts. Only later, in further psychological discussions, will we be able to understand the reason for this special value of recent impressions in dream-making.

Additionally, this brings our attention to important changes that our memories and ideas can go through at night, without us being aware of them. The advice that we should “sleep on” something before making a final decision is clearly quite justified. But we notice here that we are moving away from the psychology of dreaming and starting to touch on the psychology of sleep itself – a step we will take again from time to time later on.

What About Old, Unimportant Memories in Dreams?

Now, there’s an objection that could upset the conclusions we’ve just made. If unimportant impressions can only get into the dream’s content when they are recent, how is it that we also find things in dreams from very early periods of our lives? These are things that, even when they were recent back then, had no mental importance (as Strümpell said). They should have been forgotten long ago. These are elements that are neither fresh nor mentally important now.

This objection can be fully answered if we look at the results from psychoanalyzing people with neuroses (psychological issues). The solution is this: In those cases, the displacement – the process that substitutes unimportant material for mentally important material (both in dreaming and in thinking) – already happened in those early periods of their lives. It has been fixed in their memory ever since. So, those elements that were originally unimportant are no longer unimportant. Through displacement, they took on the value of mentally important material. Anything that has remained truly unimportant cannot be brought back up in a dream.

Are There Any Truly Harmless Dreams?

You would be right to conclude from this discussion that I believe there are no unimportant triggers for dreams, and therefore, no truly harmless or innocent dreams. This is my firm and focused opinion, with the exception of children’s dreams and perhaps brief dream-reactions to sensations during the night. Apart from these, what we dream is either clearly recognizable as mentally important, or it is distorted. If it’s distorted, its importance can only be judged after interpretation, which will then show its significance. The dream never wastes its time on small things; we don’t let just anything disturb our sleep. Dreams that seem harmless on the surface often turn out to be about quite serious or “bad” things when we take the trouble to interpret them. If I can use the expression, the dream “wasn’t born yesterday” (meaning, it’s not naive or simple). Since this is another point where I expect disagreement, and because I’m glad for a chance to show dream-distortion at work, I will now analyze some “harmless” dreams from my collection.

Example: The “Too Late at the Market” Dream

(The first one I’ll call “I”) A clever and elegant young lady, who is usually very reserved and quiet (“still waters run deep,” as they say), tells me her dream: “I arrive at the market too late and can’t get anything from the butcher or the vegetable woman.”

This seems like a harmless dream, to be sure. But dreams usually don’t look quite like this on the surface when there’s more to them. So, I ask her to tell it to me in more detail. Her detailed account is this:

She goes to the market with her cook, who is carrying the basket.
She asks the butcher for something. He tells her, “That is no longer available.” He then tries to give her something else, saying, “This is good too.”
She refuses it and goes to the vegetable woman.
The vegetable woman wants to sell her a strange vegetable, tied up in bundles and black in color.
She says, “I don’t recognize that. I won’t take it.”

The Dream’s Link to the Previous Day: The connection of this dream to the previous day is simple enough: she really had gone to the market too late and hadn’t gotten anything. The phrase “The butcher’s shop was already shut” seems like a good description of her experience. But wait: isn’t that phrase, or rather its opposite (“the shop is open”), sometimes used as a vulgar way to refer to a certain kind of carelessness in a man’s clothing, like an unbuttoned fly?

Why Do Dreams Use Trivial Details?

How Unimportant Things Gain Importance in Dreams: Displacement

We are not at all surprised by these kinds of shifts when it comes to emotions or actions:

A lonely older woman who gives all her affection to animals.
A single man who becomes a passionate collector of objects.
A soldier who defends a piece of colored cloth (the flag) with his life.
The intense joy a lover feels from a brief handclasp.
The furious rage Othello feels over a lost handkerchief. These are all clear examples of mental displacement that we easily accept.

Dreams Like to Create Unity

The young friend I had asked my colleague to help was in an elegant living room. He was with a distinguished group of wealthy people I knew (whom I had gathered in the dream).
With great confidence, like a man of the world, he was giving a funeral speech for the old lady – the aunt of my travel companion. (For the sake of the dream, she had conveniently died. I must admit, I was not on good terms with her.) So, once again, my dream had made connections between two different daytime impressions and created a single, unified situation from them.

What Can Start a Dream?

A dream can start from:

(a) A recent and mentally important experience. This experience is shown directly in the dream.
(b) Several recent and important experiences. The dream combines these into a single story.
(c) One or more recent and important experiences. These are shown in the dream’s content by referring to an unimportant experience that happened around the same time.
(d) An important inner experience (like a memory or a line of thought). This is then shown in the dream by referring to a recent but unimportant impression.

The dream’s content still refers to the recent experience.
The actual trigger for the dream is still a mentally important event or thought. Only in the first case we listed (type ‘a’) are both these conditions met by the same single impression.

What About Old, Unimportant Memories in Dreams?

Are There Any Truly Harmless Dreams?

Example: The “Too Late at the Market” Dream

She goes to the market with her cook, who is carrying the basket.
She asks the butcher for something. He tells her, “That is no longer available.” He then tries to give her something else, saying, “This is good too.”
She refuses it and goes to the vegetable woman.
The vegetable woman wants to sell her a strange vegetable, tied up in bundles and black in color.
She says, “I don’t recognize that. I won’t take it.”

By the way, the dreamer herself didn’t use that vulgar phrase about the “shop being shut”; perhaps she avoided it. Let’s try to interpret the individual details in her dream.

Spoken Words in Dreams: When something in a dream is spoken or heard (not just thought – and this difference is usually very clear), it comes from something actually said in waking life. However, this real-life speech is treated like raw material by the dream: it’s broken up, changed slightly, and, most importantly, taken out of its original context. We can use such spoken words as a starting point for interpretation.

The Butcher’s Words: So, where do the butcher’s words, “That is no longer available,” come from? Actually, they come from me. A few days earlier, I had explained to her that “the earliest experiences of childhood are, as such, no longer available directly. Instead, in analysis, they are replaced by “transferences” (feelings shifted onto the therapist) and dreams.” So, in the dream, I am the butcher. And she is rejecting these transferences – these ways of bringing earlier thoughts and feelings into the present day.

The Patient’s Words: Where do her dream-words, “I don’t recognize that. I won’t have it,” come from? For analysis, we need to break this down. “I don’t recognize that” is something she herself said to her cook the day before, during a quarrel. But then she also told her cook, “Behave properly!” A clear displacement (shift of importance) is happening here. Of the two sentences she said to her cook, she took the unimportant one (“I don’t recognize that”) into her dream. The sentence she left out, however – “Behave properly!” – is the only one that really fits the hidden meaning of the rest of the dream. It’s what someone might exclaim to a person who made an improper suggestion and forgot to “close the butcher shop” (the earlier sexual hint).

The Vegetable Woman: The similarity between this idea and the hints in the scene with the vegetable woman shows we are on the right track with the interpretation. A vegetable sold tied in bundles (and she later added it was long and narrow), and black at the same time – what can that be but a dream-combination of asparagus and black radishes? I don’t need to explain the meaning of asparagus to anyone who understands these things (it often has a phallic meaning). But the other vegetable, black radish (schwarzer Rettich in German), also seems to point to the same sexual theme. It sounds like a warning shout: “Schwarzer, rett’ dich!” (which could be twisted to mean “Black one, save yourself!” or “Watch out, black one!”). This hint reinforces the sexual meaning we suspected from the start with the “butcher shop” idea. We don’t need to understand every single detail of this dream’s meaning. What we have established is that it is meaningful and certainly not harmless.

Example II: The Piano Tuning Dream

Here is another seemingly harmless dream from the same patient. In some ways, it’s a companion to the previous one.

The Dream:

Her husband asks: “Shouldn’t we have the piano tuned?”
She replies: “It’s not worth while, and besides, the hammers need re-leathering.”

Again, this was a repetition of something that really happened the day before. Her husband asked this question, and she gave a similar reply. But what does it mean that she dreamed this? It’s true that she says the piano is a “disgusting chest with a dreadful tone,” something her husband owned before they were married.

The Key Phrase: But the key to understanding the dream comes from her words: “It’s not worth while.” This phrase came from a visit she paid to a friend the day before. She was invited to take off her jacket but refused, saying, “No thanks, it’s not worth while, I have to go soon.”

Connecting to Analysis: As she tells me this, I remember something. During our analysis session the previous day, she suddenly grabbed at her jacket where a button had come undone. It was as if she wanted to say, “Please, don’t look, it’s not worth while (to see).”

From Piano to Body: So, the German word for the piano as a “chest” (Kasten) is expanded to her own “chest” area (Brustkasten). The interpretation of the dream leads directly to the time when she was developing physically, a time when she began to be dissatisfied with her figure. It’s likely it could lead to even earlier times if we consider the words “disgusting” and “dreadful tone.” We should also remember how often in hints and dreams, smaller rounded parts of the female body stand in for, or are substituted by, larger rounded parts (or vice versa).

Example III: The Young Man’s “Winter Coat” Dream

I’ll pause this series of dreams from the female patient to include a short, seemingly harmless dream from a young man.

The Dream: He dreamed that he was putting on his winter coat again, and this was “terrible.” According to him, the reason for this dream was the sudden cold weather.

A Puzzling Detail: However, if we think more carefully, the two short parts of the dream don’t fit together well. What could be “terrible” about wearing a thick or heavy coat when it’s cold?

The Real Meaning: It also doesn’t help the “harmless” appearance of this dream that the first thought the young man had during analysis was a memory from the previous day. A lady had confidentially told him that her latest child was conceived because a condom burst. He then remembered what he thought when she told him this: a thin condom is risky, but a thick one isn’t good for feeling. The condom was the “overcoat” in the dream. (The German word Überzieher can mean an overcoat, and you “pull it over” or put it on, zieht ihn über.) A lightweight coat can also be called this. An event like the one the lady described (an unwanted pregnancy from a burst condom) would certainly have been “terrible” for this unmarried young man. And now, back to our female patient and her seemingly harmless dreams.

Example IV: The Broken Candle Dream

The Dream:

She is putting a candle into a candlestick. But the candle is broken, so it doesn’t stand up very well.
The girls at her school say she is clumsy. But the teacher says it is not her fault.

Link to Reality & Symbolism: Here too, there’s a real event behind it: she really did put a candle into a candlestick the day before, but it was not broken. A clear symbolism is being used here. A candle is an object that can arouse female sexual feelings. If it’s broken so it doesn’t stand well, this represents male impotence (and the dream says “it is not her fault”).

The Patient’s Awareness: But does this young woman, who was carefully brought up and is unfamiliar with crude things, know about this symbolic use of a candle? As it turns out, she can recall the exact experience through which she learned this. During a trip on the Rhine river in a rowboat, another boat passed them. In it, a group of students were sitting and loudly singing a song that went: “When the Queen of Sweden, with the window-shutters closed, takes Apollo candles …” She didn’t hear or understand the last words, and her husband had to explain them to her.

The Dream’s Disguise: In the dream, these suggestive song lines are replaced by the harmless memory of a task she once did clumsily at her boarding school. And it happened under similar circumstances: with the window shutters closed. The connection between the theme of masturbation (suggested by “Apollo candles”) and impotence is clear enough. The name “Apollo” in the hidden dream thoughts links this dream to an earlier one where the virginal goddess Pallas was mentioned. Indeed, this dream is not at all harmless.

Example V: The Trunk Full of Books Dream

In case you might think it’s too easy to draw conclusions from a dream about the dreamer’s real life, I’ll add another dream from the same person that also seems harmless.

The Dream: She said, “I dreamed of something I really did during the day. I was filling a little trunk with so many books that I had trouble closing it. And I dreamed it exactly as it really happened.”

A Note on Dreamer’s Comments: Here, the dreamer herself emphasizes how closely the dream matched reality. Now, even though such judgments about the dream or comments on it are made in waking thought, they always belong to the hidden content of the dream, as other examples will show.

Interpreting the Dream: So, we are told that what the dream describes really happened the day before. It would take too long to explain the exact steps that led us, during the interpretation, to the idea of using the English language to help understand this. It’s enough to say that once again, we are dealing with a “little box” (compare this to her earlier dream of the dead child in the “box”). This little box was filled so full that nothing more would go in. This time, at least, it’s about nothing bad. (This hints the previous “box” dream was about something perceived as negative).

In all of these seemingly “harmless” dreams, it is the sexual element that stands out so clearly as the reason for the censorship. But this is a topic of fundamental importance, and we will have to put it aside for now.

(b) Childhood Material as a Source of Dreams

As the third special feature of dream content, we (like almost all writers on dreams, except Robert) have pointed out that impressions from our earliest childhood years can appear in our dreams. These are memories that don’t seem to be available to us when we are awake. It’s understandably hard to tell how often this happens, because after we wake up, we often can’t recognize where these dream elements came from. So, to prove that we are dealing with childhood impressions, we need objective evidence, and it’s rare to find such proof.

Maury’s Example: A. Maury tells a story that is particularly good evidence. A man decided to visit his hometown after being away for twenty years. The night before he left, he dreamed he was in a village he didn’t recognize. In the street, he met a man he didn’t know, and they had a conversation. When he actually returned to his hometown, he was able to confirm that this unfamiliar village really existed nearby. And the unknown man from his dream turned out to be a friend of his late father who lived there. This is certainly strong proof that he had seen both the man and the village in his childhood. Additionally, this dream can be interpreted as an “impatience dream,” like the one the girl had about the concert ticket, or the child whose father had promised him a trip to the Hameau. Of course, the reasons why the dream brought up this particular childhood impression rather than any other cannot be discovered without analysis.

Childhood Memory Confirmed by Brother: Someone who attended my lectures claimed his dreams were rarely distorted. He told me that a while ago, he dreamed he saw his former tutor in bed with the maid. This maid had worked in his house until he was eleven years old. The location of this scene came to him while he was dreaming. Curious, he told the dream to his older brother. His brother laughed and confirmed that what he had dreamed was real. He remembered it very well, he said, because he was six years old at the time. The tutor and maid used to give him, the older boy, beer to get him drunk when they wanted some nighttime privacy. The younger child, our dreamer, was then three years old and slept in the maid’s room. They didn’t consider him an inconvenience.

Recurrent Dreams from Childhood

There’s another situation where we can be certain, without needing dream interpretation, that a dream contains elements from childhood. This is when the dream is a recurrent one – meaning, a dream that was first dreamed in childhood and then reappears from time to time in the adult’s sleep. I can add some examples of this kind of dream that people have told me, though I’ve never had one myself.

The Yellow Lion Dream: A doctor in his thirties told me that from his earliest childhood until the present day, a yellow lion, which he can describe perfectly, has often appeared in his dreams. One day, this lion, which he only knew from his dreams, turned up in real life as a long-lost porcelain object. The young man then learned from his mother that this object had been his favorite toy during his early childhood, though he himself no longer remembered it.

The Frightening Key Dream: One of my female patients had dreamed the same frightening scene four or five times over her thirty-eight years. In the dream, she is being chased, runs into a room, shuts the door, then opens it again to get the key, which is in the lock on the outside. Then, with the feeling that something terrible will happen if she doesn’t succeed, she grabs the key to lock the door from the inside. After this, she breathes a sigh of relief. I am unable to say at what early age this little scene, which of course she must have only witnessed, could have taken place.

Childhood Experiences Hidden in Dreams

If we now look beyond the surface content of dreams to the hidden dream thoughts revealed by analysis, we are amazed to find that childhood experiences are actively involved in dreams where we would never expect them.

The ‘Nansen’s Sciatica’ Dream: I owe a particularly charming and informative example of this kind of dream to my respected colleague who dreamed of the “yellow lion.” After reading Nansen’s book about his polar expedition, my colleague dreamed that he was on an icefield giving electrical (galvanic) treatment to the brave explorer Nansen for sciatica (nerve pain in the leg) that Nansen was complaining about! In analyzing this dream, he remembered an incident from his childhood. Without this memory, the dream would certainly have been impossible to understand. One day, when he was three or four years old, he was listening carefully to grown-ups talking about journeys of discovery. He then asked his father if “journeys” (Reisen in German) were a serious illness. He had clearly confused the word Reisen (journeys) with the similar-sounding word Reissen (which can mean aches or tearing pains). The laughter of his brothers and sisters made sure he never forgot this embarrassing experience.

Revisiting the ‘Botanical Monograph’ Dream: Something quite similar happens in the analysis of my dream about the botanical monograph. I uncover the memory of my father giving me, a five-year-old boy, a book with colored plates to destroy. One might doubt whether this memory really did play a part in creating the dream, or if the analysis is just making a connection after the fact. But the richness of the connections, and the way they were all tangled together, supports the idea that the memory was truly involved. (Remember the connections: cyclamen – favorite flower – favorite food – artichoke; pulling a book apart like an artichoke, leaf by leaf – an expression used daily at the time in connection with the division of a large empire – then herbarium, and bookworm, whose favorite food is books). Moreover, I can state that the final, deepest meaning of the dream, which I haven’t fully shared here, is very closely connected to what happened in that childhood scene.

Childhood Wishes Live On in Dreams

In another group of dreams, analysis teaches us that the very wish that started the dream, the wish that the dream fulfills, actually comes from childhood. So, to our surprise, we find the child, with all its urges, living on in the dream.

Revisiting the “R. is my Uncle” Dream: At this point, I will continue interpreting a dream from which we’ve already learned a lot: the dream where my friend R. is my uncle. We had interpreted it up to the point where the wish to be appointed professor clearly appeared. We also explained the affection I felt for my friend R. in the dream as a kind of defiant reaction, created to oppose the negative thoughts I was having about my two colleagues in my hidden dream-thoughts. The dream was my own, so I can continue analyzing it by saying that the explanation I had reached still didn’t feel completely satisfying to me. I knew that my opinion of the colleagues who were treated so badly in my dream thoughts was quite different in my waking life. And the strength of my wish not to suffer the same fate as them regarding the university appointment didn’t seem enough to fully explain the big difference between my waking opinion of them and the dream’s opinion. If my need to have a different title was really so strong, it would suggest an unhealthy level of ambition. I don’t see this in myself, and I believe it’s quite unlike me. I don’t know how others who think they know me would judge me on this. Perhaps I really have been ambitious; but if so, my ambition has long been focused on other goals, not on the rank and title of an associate professor.

The Source of Ambition in the Dream So where did the ambition that fueled my dream come from?

A Childhood Prophecy: Suddenly, a story I was told very often in my childhood comes to my mind. When I was born, an old peasant woman made a prophecy to my mother, who was overjoyed with her first child. The woman said that my mother had given the world a great man. Such prophecies must be very common. There are so many mothers with high hopes for their children, and so many old peasant women or other old women who have lost their power in this world and so turn their attention to predicting the future. And making such a prophecy probably didn’t hurt the prophetess either. Could this be the source of my desire for greatness?

A Second Prophecy: But just at this moment, I remember another impression from my later childhood years that might offer an even better explanation. One evening, when I was eleven or twelve, my parents often took me to restaurants in the Prater (a large park in Vienna). We noticed a man going from table to table. For a small amount of money, he would make up verses on any subject given to him. I was sent to invite this poet to our table, and he was grateful to me, the messenger. Before he even asked what topic he should rhyme about, he dedicated a few rhymes to me. In his inspiration, he declared that one day I would probably become a “minister” (a high government official).

Impact of the Second Prophecy: I can still remember very clearly the impression this second prophecy made on me. It was during the time of the “Bourgeois Ministry” (a particular government). Shortly before this, my father had brought home pictures of these middle-class academics who had become ministers – men like Herbst, Giskra, Unger, and Berger. We had even lit up our house to honor these gentlemen. There were even Jews among them. This meant that every hardworking Jewish boy felt like he carried the potential to become a minister in his schoolbag. It must have been due to the influence of those times that until shortly before I started university, I planned to study law. I only changed my mind at the very last moment. A career as a minister is certainly not open to someone in the medical profession!

Are Physical Sensations the Only Source of Dreams?

Even though supporters of the “physical sensation” theory of dreams felt sure about their ideas, they still had doubts. They especially believed in accidental, external physical triggers, like a noise or a touch, because these can sometimes be easily recognized in the content of dreams. However, none of them were sure that the huge number of ideas in dreams could come only from these external physical sensations.

Miss Mary Whiton Calkins studied her own dreams and another person’s dreams for six weeks to check this. She found that only a small percentage of dreams (13.2% for her, 6.7% for the other person) clearly showed an element of external sense perception. Only two dreams in her collection could be traced back to internal physical sensations (like an upset stomach). These statistics confirm what a quick look at our own experiences would suggest: external physical triggers don’t account for most dream content.

Many have tried to solve this by saying that “physical-stimulus dreams” are just one well-studied type of dream, among others. For example, a writer named Spitta divided dreams into those caused by physical stimuli and those caused by mental association (ideas linking to other ideas). However, this solution wasn’t satisfying because it didn’t show the link between the physical dream sources and the actual ideas in the dream.

Problems with the “Physical Sensation” Theory

So, besides the first problem – that external stimuli don’t happen often enough to explain all dreams – there’s a second problem: this theory doesn’t properly explain the dream itself. Supporters of this theory need to answer two questions:

First, why don’t we recognize an external stimulus in our dreams for what it really is? Why do we always misunderstand it (like in the dreams about alarm clocks we discussed earlier)?
Second, why does our mind react so differently and unpredictably to these misunderstood stimuli?

The “Dream as Illusion” Idea

A writer named Strümpell offered an answer to these questions. He said that because our mind withdraws from the outside world during sleep, it can’t correctly understand physical sensations. Instead, it’s forced to create illusions based on these sensations, using their vague possibilities. He explained it like this: “As soon as an external or internal physical stimulus creates a sensation, a feeling, or any kind of mental event, and as soon as the mind notices it, this event calls up mental images. These images are left over from waking experiences and past perceptions. They might be simple images or ones with emotional meaning attached. The original sensation gathers these images around itself. Through these images, the impression from the physical stimulus gains its mental meaning. We usually say that, just like when we’re awake, the mind interprets these impressions from physical stimuli when we’re asleep. The result of this interpretation is what we call a physical-stimulus dream. Its parts are determined by a physical stimulus affecting the mind according to the laws of how memories are brought back.”

Wundt’s view is essentially the same. He believed that ideas in dreams mainly come from sensory stimuli, especially from our general feeling of being alive. So, he thought dreams are mostly illusions created by our imagination. Only a small part might be pure memories made intense enough to seem like hallucinations.

The Piano Metaphor To describe the relationship between dream content and dream stimuli according to this theory, Strümpell used an excellent comparison: It’s “as though the ten fingers of a player who knows nothing about music are running up and down the keyboard.” In this view, a dream would not be a mental event caused by mental motivations. Instead, it would be the result of a physical stimulus expressing itself through mental symptoms, because the mind, when affected by the stimulus, can’t express itself in any other way. A similar idea was behind Meynert’s explanation of obsessive thoughts, when he famously compared it to a dial where certain numbers stand out more strongly than others.

No matter how popular this “physical dream-stimulus” theory has become, or how attractive it seems, it’s easy to point out its weak spot. Any physical dream stimulus that the sleeping mind has to interpret by creating an illusion could lead to countless such interpretations. It could be represented in the dream by a huge variety of different ideas. However, the theory from Strümpell and Wundt can’t suggest any reason that would control the connection between the external stimulus and the specific dream idea chosen to interpret it. It can’t explain the “strange selection” that stimuli often make in bringing up memories (as another writer, Lipps, pointed out).

Can the Mind Interpret Sensations During Sleep?

Other objections can be made against the basic idea of the whole illusion theory: the idea that the sleeping mind is unable to recognize the real nature of physical sensations from the outside world. The physiologist Burdach showed us long ago that even in sleep, the mind is perfectly capable of understanding sense impressions correctly. It’s also capable of reacting appropriately based on that correct understanding. For example, he argued that we can filter out sense impressions that seem important to us (like a nurse listening for a child) from the general unawareness of sleep. And we are much more likely to be woken by hearing our own name than by some unimportant sound. This, of course, means that even in sleep, the mind can tell the difference between sensations. Burdach concluded from these observations that we shouldn’t assume we are unable to interpret sensory stimuli during sleep. Instead, it’s more likely a lack of interest in them. Lipps, in 1883, used the same arguments as Burdach from 1830 to criticize the physical stimulus theory. According to this view, the mind in sleep is like the sleeper in the old joke: When asked, “Are you asleep?”, he replies, “No.” But when then asked, “Then lend me ten guilders,” he quickly uses the excuse, “I’m asleep!”

The weakness of the “physical dream-stimulus” theory can be shown in other ways too. Observation shows that external stimuli don’t force me to dream, even if they do appear in my dream when I happen to be dreaming. I can react to a stimulus during sleep (like something touching my skin or pressure) in several ways:

I can simply not notice it. Then, when I wake up, I might find that, for example, my leg is uncovered or my arm was squashed.
Medical cases show countless examples of even strong sensations or movements during sleep that have no effect at all.
I might feel a sensation during sleep – it sort of breaks through my sleep – which often happens with painful stimuli. But I might feel it without weaving the pain into a dream.
Thirdly, I might wake up because of the stimulus in order to get rid of it.

Only as a fourth possible reaction might the physical stimulus cause me to dream. But the other possibilities happen at least as often as dreaming. This couldn’t be the case if the motivation for dreaming didn’t come from somewhere other than physical stimuli.

Scherner’s Idea: Dreams Symbolize Body Sensations

Other writers, like Scherner and the philosopher Volkelt, fairly pointed out these gaps in the explanation that dreams are due to physical stimuli. They tried to describe more precisely the mental activities that create such varied and colorful dream images from these physical stimuli. In other words, they brought dreaming back into the realm of the mind and its activities.

Scherner not only gave vivid and imaginative poetic descriptions of the mental features seen in dream formation. He also believed he had discovered the main principle of how the mind deals with the stimuli it receives. According to Scherner, when the dream-work gets the imagination going – an imagination that is free from the limits of the day – it tries to represent, in symbolic form, the nature of the organ causing the stimulus and what kind of stimulus it is. This way, a kind of dream-book could be developed. It would give instructions for interpreting dreams and allow us to guess our bodily feelings, the condition of our organs, and the nature of stimuli from our dream images.

For example (according to Volkelt, explaining Scherner):

“The image of a cat might express a bad mood; a smooth, shiny loaf of bread might represent bodily nudity.”
“The human body as a whole is pictured by the dream-imagination as a house, and the separate body organs as parts of the house.”
“In “toothache dreams,” a high-arched entrance hall represents the mouth, and a flight of stairs represents the passage from the throat to the esophagus. In “headache dreams,” the ceiling of a room covered with disgusting toad-like spiders is chosen to represent the top of the head.”
“The dream uses a wide selection of these symbols to represent the same organ. For instance, the breathing lung is symbolized by a blazing, roaring stove; the heart by empty chests and baskets; the bladder by round, bag-shaped, or generally hollow objects.”
“It’s especially important that at the end of the dream, the organ causing the stimulus, or its function, is often shown directly, without symbols, mainly as it affects the dreamer’s own body. For example, a “toothache dream” usually ends with the dreamer pulling a tooth out of his mouth.”

Problems with Scherner’s Theory: This theory of dream interpretation has not been very popular with experts on the subject. More than anything, it seemed too far-fetched. People have even been reluctant to recognize the small bit of truth that I believe it contains. As we see, it brings back dream interpretation using symbols, like the ancients did, except the interpretation is limited to the human body. The usefulness of Scherner’s theory is seriously limited because it lacks a scientifically understandable method of interpretation. Arbitrary interpretations are certainly a risk, especially since a stimulus can be represented in the dream in many different ways. Even Scherner’s follower, Volkelt, couldn’t confirm the idea that the body is represented as a house. It’s also likely to cause offense that, once again, this theory makes the dream-work seem like a useless and pointless activity. According to this theory, the mind is happy just to create fantasies about the stimulus affecting it, without any chance of actually removing the stimulus.

But there’s one objection that seriously weakens Scherner’s theory about dreams symbolizing physical stimuli. These physical stimuli from our organs are present all the time. It’s generally assumed that our mind is more open to them during sleep than when we are awake. So, it’s hard to understand why the mind doesn’t dream continuously all night long. Indeed, why doesn’t it dream every night about all the organs? If this objection is answered by saying that special, stronger sensations would have to come from the eyes, ears, teeth, intestines, etc., to trigger dream activity, then there’s still a problem. It’s difficult to prove that these increases in stimuli are real and objective – this is possible only in a few cases. For example, if the dream of flying symbolizes the lungs rising and falling during breathing (as Strümpell already noted), then either this dream should happen much more often, or we should be able to show increased breathing activity during the dream. Yet, a third possibility exists, which is the most likely of all: special motives might occasionally be at work. These motives could draw our attention to internal bodily sensations that are always present. But this idea already takes us beyond Scherner’s theory.

What We Can Learn from Scherner’s Ideas

The value of Scherner’s and Volkelt’s views is that they point out several features of dream content that need explanation and seem to block further understanding. It is quite true that dreams contain symbols of bodily organs and functions. For example:

In dreams, water often indicates a stimulus from the bladder.
The male sexual organ can be represented by an upright staff or a column.

One can hardly dismiss the interpretation of dreams with very active visual scenes and bright colors as “visual-stimulus dreams” (especially when compared to the pale colors of other dreams). Nor can one deny that illusions play a part in dreams that contain noise and jumbled voices. Consider a dream like Scherner’s: two rows of fine, fair-haired boys stand on a bridge, attack each other, then return to their original positions. Finally, the dreamer sits on the bridge and pulls a long tooth from his jaw. Or a similar dream of Volkelt’s: it involves two rows of cupboard drawers and again ends with pulling out a tooth. Dream images like these, described in great detail by both writers, mean we can’t just dismiss Scherner’s theory as a useless invention without first looking into the core of truth it contains. Our job then will be to find an alternative explanation for this supposed symbolizing of an alleged toothache.

Fitting Physical Sensations into the Wish-Fulfillment Theory

All this time we’ve been discussing theories about physical sources of dreams, I haven’t used arguments from my own dream analyses. But if we have been able to show – using a method that other experts haven’t applied to their dream material – that dreams have their own value as mental acts, that a wish is the reason for their creation, and that experiences from the previous day provide the immediate material for their content, then any other dream theory is in trouble. Any theory that ignores such an important way of investigating dreams, and as a result makes dreams seem like useless and puzzling mental reactions to physical stimuli, is basically disproven, even without specific criticism. Otherwise – though it’s very unlikely – there would have to be two completely different kinds of dreams. Perhaps we have only studied one kind, and the earlier experts only studied the other. All that’s left for us to do now is to find a place in our own theory of dreams for the facts that the current theory of physical dream stimuli is based on.

How Physical Sensations Are Used: We have already taken the first step in this direction. We suggested that the dream-work feels a strong urge to process all dream-starting triggers that are present at the same time into one unified dream. We saw that when two or more experiences from the previous day are capable of making an impression, the wishes coming from them are united in a dream. We also saw that the mentally important impression and the unimportant experience come together to form the material of the dream, as long as connecting ideas can be found between them. Therefore, the dream seems to be a reaction to everything that is simultaneously present and currently active in the sleeping mind. So far, when we’ve analyzed dream material, we’ve seen it as a collection of mental leftovers and memory traces. Because dreams prefer recent material and childhood material, we had to say these have some kind of “current activity,” though we couldn’t yet define it psychologically. It won’t be very hard for us now to predict what will happen if new material from the senses (physical stimuli) joins these active memories during sleep. These sensations, in turn, become important for the dream because they are current and active. They combine with the other currently active factors in the mind to provide material for forming the dream. In other words, stimuli that occur during sleep are processed into a wish-fulfillment. The other parts of this wish-fulfillment are the familiar mental leftovers from the day.

This combination doesn’t have to happen. Indeed, we’ve heard that more than one kind of response to physical stimuli is possible when we are asleep. Where this combination does happen is in those dreams where it has been possible to find dream content material that can express both kinds of dream sources – the physical (somatic) and the mental (psychical).

The Dream’s Core Remains: The essential nature of the dream is not changed if mental sources of the dream are joined by physical material. It remains a wish-fulfillment, no matter how its expression is shaped by the currently available material. At this point, I would like to make space for discussing a number of special factors that can change the importance of external stimuli for the dream in various ways.

Let me explain my ideas with an example. This will also help us return to how we interpret dreams.

One day, I was trying to understand a common dream sensation: feeling like you can’t move. In these dreams, you might feel stuck, unable to act, or unable to finish something. This feeling is very much like anxiety.

That night, I had a dream: I was not fully dressed. I was going from a ground-floor apartment up a flight of stairs to a higher floor. As I climbed, I was jumping three steps at a time. I felt pleased that I could climb so easily. Suddenly, I saw a maidservant coming down the stairs toward me. I felt embarrassed and tried to hurry. Then, that feeling of being unable to move came over me. I was stuck on the steps and couldn’t budge.

Analyzing the Dream

The situation in this dream came from my real life. I have two apartments in Vienna. They are in the same building but connected only by the main public staircase. My office and study are on the upper ground floor. My living quarters are one floor above. Late in the evening, after finishing work in my lower apartment, I go up the stairs to my bedroom. On the evening before the dream, I had indeed gone up those stairs somewhat undressed. I had taken off my collar, tie, and cuffs. In the dream, this became even more undressed, though, as usual in dreams, it was vague.

Jumping up the stairs three at a time is how I normally go upstairs. In the dream, this was also a wish-fulfillment. I recognized this even in the dream. Being able to climb so easily reassured me about my heart’s condition. Also, climbing the stairs this way is the direct opposite of the feeling of being stuck in the second half of the dream. This shows something obvious: dreams have no problem picturing physical actions performed perfectly. Think about flying in dreams, for example!

However, the stairs I was climbing in the dream were not the ones in my own house. At first, I didn’t recognize them. Only the person coming towards me helped me realize which place the dream meant. This person was the maidservant of an elderly lady I visit twice a day to give injections. The stairs in the dream were also quite similar to the ones I have to climb at her house twice daily.

How did these particular stairs and this woman get into my dream? The embarrassment about not being fully dressed is definitely sexual. The maidservant I dreamed about is older than me, grumpy, and not at all attractive.

The only explanation I can find is this: When I visit this patient’s house in the morning, I usually have to clear my throat and spit. The phlegm lands on one of the steps. There are no spittoons on either floor in that building. I believe that providing a spittoon should be their responsibility to keep the stairs clean, not mine. The housekeeper, who is also an elderly and grumpy person (though I admit she values cleanliness), disagrees with me. She watches me to see if I will take this liberty again. When she confirms I have, I hear her grumbling loudly. Then, for days, she won’t greet me with the usual respect when we meet.

On the day before my dream, the housekeeper gained an ally: the maid. I had finished my visit with the patient and was hurrying, as always. The maidservant stopped me in the hallway and said, “Doctor, you could have wiped your boots today before you came into the room. Your feet have made the red carpet all dirty again.” This is the entire reason the stairs and the maidservant appeared in my dream.

There is a close link between me flying over the stairs and spitting on them. Both throat irritation (catarrh) and heart trouble are thought by some to be punishments for smoking. Smoking has given me a bad reputation for cleanliness with the lady in charge of my own house, just as it has in the other house. The dream combined both these issues into a single story.

I need to wait to explain this dream further until I can discuss the origin of the typical dream of being incompletely clothed. For now, the main takeaway from this dream is this: the dream-sensation of being unable to move always appears when the dream’s storyline needs it. The cause of feeling stuck in the dream was not because I was physically still while sleeping. After all, just a moment before in the dream, I saw myself leaping up the steps, as if to reassure myself on this very point.

(d) Typical Dreams

Generally, we cannot interpret someone else’s dream if they are unwilling to share the unconscious thoughts behind its content. This is a serious limitation on how useful our dream interpretation method can be in practice.

However, people usually have a lot of freedom to create their dream-worlds in their own unique ways. This often makes their dreams inaccessible to others. But, in contrast to this, there are some dreams that almost everyone has experienced in the same way. We usually assume these dreams also have the same meaning for everyone.

These typical dreams are especially interesting. They probably come from the same sources in all people who dream them. So, they seem particularly well-suited to teach us about the sources of dreams.

When discussing these typical dreams, I am limited by a personal factor: I haven’t experienced enough of them myself. So, I will only provide a more detailed look at a few examples in this category. For this, I will choose:

The embarrassing dream of being naked.
The dream of the death of beloved relatives.

Dreams of Being Naked

Dreams of being naked or poorly dressed in front of strangers can also happen without feeling ashamed. But we are most interested in nakedness dreams where the dreamer does feel shame or embarrassment. In these dreams, the dreamer wants to run away or hide. Then, they experience that strange feeling of being unable to move from the spot. They feel completely helpless to change the embarrassing situation.

The dream is typical only when it has this combination of elements. Otherwise, its core content might be mixed up with all sorts of other personal connections and details. The essential parts are:

The embarrassing feeling of shame.
Wanting to hide one’s nakedness (usually by trying to move).
Being unable to do so.

I believe most of my readers have found themselves in this situation in their dreams at some point.

Usually, how undressed one is, and in what way, is not very clear. For instance, someone might say, “I was in my shirt.” But this is rarely a clear image. Mostly, the state of undress is so vague that when people describe it, they offer alternatives like, “I was in my shirt or my underwear.”

As a rule, the lack of clothing is not so bad that the shame felt would seem justified. For someone who has worn a military uniform, nakedness is often replaced by simply being dressed incorrectly. For example:

“I am in the street without my sword, and I see a group of officers coming towards me.”
“I am without my necktie.”
“I am wearing checked civilian trousers” (when one should be in uniform).

The people in whose presence one feels ashamed are almost always strangers. Their faces are usually indistinct. In a typical dream of this kind, these strangers never object to or even draw attention to the dreamer’s embarrassing state of dress. On the contrary, these people are indifferent. Or, as I saw in one particularly clear dream, they act very stiff and solemn. This is an important point to consider.

The dreamer’s shame and embarrassment, combined with the indifference of the other people, create a contradiction. This kind of contradiction often happens in dreams. Logically, if the dreamer feels so ashamed, the strangers should be staring, laughing, or becoming angry. But, as I see it, this offensive reaction is removed from the dream by wish-fulfillment. The dreamer wishes they wouldn’t react badly. Meanwhile, the shame, supported by some other internal force, remains. This makes the two parts of the dream out of sync.

We have interesting evidence that this dream, partly changed by wish-fulfillment, has not been properly understood. It has, of course, become the basis of a fairy tale we all know from Hans Christian Andersen: “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Andersen’s story tells of two tricksters. They claim to weave a precious garment for the Emperor. This garment is supposed to be visible only to subjects who are virtuous and loyal. The Emperor goes out wearing this invisible garment. Everyone pretends not to notice that the Emperor is naked. They are afraid that admitting they can’t see the clothes will mean they are disloyal or not virtuous.

This is exactly the situation in our dream. It’s reasonable to assume that because the dream’s content wasn’t understood, it inspired a story. This story gives the half-remembered dream situation a new meaning that makes some sense. By doing this, the situation is stripped of its original meaning and used for other purposes.

We will see later that this kind of misunderstanding – where the conscious mind misinterprets dream content – happens frequently. It is a factor in how the final dream is shaped. Furthermore, similar misunderstandings within a person’s mind play a big part in creating obsessions and phobias.

Regarding our dream of nakedness, we can also identify where the material for this reinterpretation (the fairy tale) comes from.

The deceiver in the story is the dream itself.
The Emperor is the dreamer.
The moralizing tone of the story hints at an unclear awareness. It suggests that the hidden dream content involves forbidden wishes that have been suppressed.

In fact, when these kinds of dreams appear during my analysis of patients with neuroses, there’s no doubt about their origin. The dream is based on a memory from our earliest childhood. It is only in our childhood that we are seen in inadequate clothing by relatives, as well as by unfamiliar nannies, maids, and visitors. And in those days, we were not ashamed of our nakedness.

With many children, we can see that even in later years, being undressed excites them rather than making them feel ashamed. They laugh, jump around, and slap themselves. Their mother or whoever is present might scold them, saying: “Stop it! That’s naughty! You mustn’t do that.” Children often show an exhibitionistic pleasure in wanting to show themselves off. You can hardly walk through a village in the countryside around here without seeing a two- or three-year-old who lifts their little shirt for a traveler, perhaps as a greeting.

One of my patients has a conscious memory from when he was eight years old. After undressing for bed, he tried to dance out in his shirt to his little sister in the next room. The maidservant looking after him stopped him. Exposure before children of the opposite sex plays a large part in the early lives of people with neuroses. In paranoia, the delusion of being watched while dressing and undressing can be traced back to this kind of experience. Among adults who remain in what psychoanalysis calls a perverse stage, there is a group for whom this childhood impulse has become a symptom: exhibitionists.

Looking back, this shame-free childhood appears to us as a paradise. And Paradise itself is simply the collective fantasy of an individual’s childhood. This is why in Paradise, too, humans are naked and feel no shame in each other’s presence. This lasts until a moment comes when shame and anxiety awaken, and sexual life and the work of culture begin. Dreams can take us back to this Paradise every night.

We have already suggested that impressions from our earliest childhood (the period up to about the end of our third year) want to be reproduced for their own sake, perhaps regardless of their actual content. Their repetition is a form of wish-fulfillment. Thus, nakedness-dreams are exhibition-dreams – dreams about wanting to show oneself.

The core of an exhibition-dream includes:

Your own self, seen as you are now (not as a child).
The inadequate clothing, which looks unclear. This is because it’s covered by many later memories of being undressed, or changed to satisfy the mind’s internal censorship.
The people in whose presence you feel ashamed.

I don’t know of any case where the actual people who saw these childhood exhibitions reappear in the dream. Dreams are hardly ever simple recollections. Curiously, the people we were sexually interested in as children are left out of all these reproduced scenarios in dreams, hysteria, and obsessive neurosis. Only paranoia seems to bring back these spectators. Paranoia does this with a fanatical conviction that, although they are invisible, they are really present.

Instead of these original figures, the dream often presents “a lot of strangers” who take no notice of the spectacle. This is practically the wishful opposite of the one familiar person in front of whom one exposed oneself in childhood. By the way, “a lot of strangers” often appear in dreams in many other contexts. As wishful opposites, they always signify “secrets.” It’s noticeable that when paranoia restores the earlier state of affairs (being watched), it also takes this “opposite” into account. One is no longer alone, one is certainly being observed, but the observers are “a lot of strangers, left curiously indefinite.”

Moreover, repression also finds its voice in the exhibition-dream. The embarrassing feeling in the dream is, after all, the reaction of the conscious part of the mind (the “second psychical system”). It reacts to the fact that the content of the exhibition scene – which it had rejected – has nevertheless managed to be represented in the dream. To avoid this embarrassment, the scene should not have been brought to life again.

We will discuss the feeling of inhibition, or being stuck, again later. In dreams, it is an excellent way to represent a conflict of will – a “No.” The unconscious intention is to continue the exhibition. The demand of the censorship (the mind’s internal moralizer) is to stop it.

The connections between our typical dreams and fairy tales or other poetic materials are certainly not isolated or accidental. A poet is normally the one who transforms these raw materials. But sometimes, a perceptive poet has understood this process analytically and worked backward, tracing a poem back to a dream.

A friend pointed out the following passage from Gottfried Keller’s novel, Green Henry: “It is not my wish, my dear Lee, that you should ever learn from experience the exquisitely sharp truth in Odysseus’ situation when he appears naked and covered with mud before Nausicaa and her companions! Do you want to know what is going on in it? Some time, when you are separated from your homeland and all you hold dear, roaming in foreign lands; when you have seen much and experienced much; when you are acquainted with grief and sorrow, are wretched and deserted—then at night you are sure to dream that you are drawing near your homeland. You will see it shining, radiant in the loveliest colors. Fair and gracious figures come to meet you. Then you suddenly discover that you are walking in rags, naked and covered in dust. A nameless shame and fear take hold of you. You try to cover yourself, to hide, and you wake bathed in sweat. As long as mankind has existed, this has been the dream of the sorrowful, storm-tossed man. And thus it is that Homer has taken that situation from the depths of man’s eternal nature.”

The “depths of mankind’s eternal nature,” which the poet always hopes to stir in his audience, are made of those inner stirrings rooted in our childhood. This childhood later becomes like a prehistoric era for us. Behind the respectable, conscious wishes of the homeless man (like wanting to return home), forbidden childhood wishes break out. These wishes have become unacceptable. That is why the dream, as seen in the legend of Nausicaa, always turns into an anxiety-dream.

My own dream, which I mentioned earlier – the one about running up the stairs and then suddenly being rooted to the spot – is also an exhibition-dream. It shows the essential elements of this type of dream. So, it should be traceable back to childhood experiences. Understanding these experiences should clarify how the maidservant’s behavior towards me – her complaint that I dirtied the carpet – contributes to her role in the dream.

In fact, I can provide the needed explanation. In psychoanalysis, we learn to reinterpret things that are close together in time as being close together in subject matter. If two ideas that seem unconnected appear one right after the other, they belong to a single, underlying unit. It’s like when I write an ‘a’ and a ‘b’ one after the other; they are meant to be spoken as a syllable, ‘ab’. The same applies to relating elements to one another in dreams. The staircase dream I mentioned is part of a series of dreams. I am familiar with the interpretation of the other dreams in this series. This dream, surrounded by the others, must belong in the same context.

The other dreams in that series were based on a memory of a nursemaid. She looked after me from when I was a baby until I was two-and-a-half years old. My mother recently told me that this nursemaid was old and unattractive, but very intelligent and skilled.

From what I can tell from my dreams, she didn’t always treat me kindly. She would speak harshly if I didn’t meet her standards for cleanliness. So, in my dream about the stairs, when the maidservant took it upon herself to continue this “education” about cleanliness (by scolding me about dirty boots), she was acting as a stand-in for that nursemaid from my early childhood. We can assume that even though the nursemaid was sometimes harsh, as a child, I was likely fond of this important figure in my life.

More Typical Dreams: The Death of a Loved One

Another group of dreams that can be called typical are those where a loved relative dies. This could be a parent, sibling, child, or someone else close. We need to immediately separate these dreams into two types:

Dreams where the dreamer feels no sadness. Upon waking, they might even wonder why they felt nothing.
Dreams where the dreamer feels deep grief over the death. They might even cry passionately in their sleep.

We can set aside the first type of dream for now. They don’t really qualify as typical in the same way. When we analyze them, we find they mean something different from what they show on the surface. They are usually hiding some other wish.

Consider the dream of the aunt who saw her sister’s only son in a coffin. This dream didn’t mean she wished her little nephew was dead. As we learned, it actually meant she wished to see a certain beloved person again after a long separation. She had once seen this same person after a similar long break, at the funeral of another nephew. This underlying wish—the true content of the dream—is not a reason for sadness. That’s why no sadness was felt in the dream.

Here, we see that the emotion in a dream belongs to its hidden meaning (the latent content), not to the surface story (the manifest content). The dream’s emotional content has avoided the distortion that changed its images and story.

Dreams of a Relative’s Death with Sadness

The situation is different for dreams where the death of a dear relative is shown and is accompanied by feelings of sadness. These dreams mean exactly what their content says: they represent a wish that the person in the dream might die.

I expect that this interpretation will be shocking to my readers and to anyone who has had such a dream. Therefore, I must try to prove this idea with a very broad foundation of evidence.

We have already discussed a dream that taught us something important: the wishes fulfilled in our dreams are not always current wishes. They can also be wishes from the past. These may be wishes that are over, pushed aside, or repressed. Yet, we must acknowledge they still exist in some form because they reappear in our dreams. They are not dead as we think of the dead. Instead, they are like the spirits in Homer’s Odyssey, who awaken to a kind of life once they have tasted blood.

The dream of the dead child in the box, for instance, was about a wish that was active fifteen years earlier. The dreamer openly admitted this wish was from that time. It might be important for the theory of dreams to add that even this dream had a memory from earliest childhood at its core. As a little girl (we don’t know exactly when), the dreamer had heard that during the pregnancy that resulted in her birth, her mother had fallen into a deep depression. Her mother had wished with all her heart that the child in her womb would die. Now, as an adult and pregnant herself, the dreamer was simply following her mother’s example.

If someone has a dream filled with grief that their mother, father, brother, or sister has died, I never take this as proof that the dreamer wishes them dead now. The theory of dreams doesn’t demand such an extreme conclusion. It is enough to conclude that—sometime in childhood—the dreamer did wish them dead.

But I am afraid this clarification will still not satisfy my critics. They might argue just as strongly against the possibility that they ever had such a thought, just as they feel sure they don’t have such wishes now. That is why I have to reconstruct a part of the lost inner world of childhood, using evidence that can still be found in the present.

Children and Their Siblings

Let’s first look at the relationship children have with their brothers and sisters. I don’t know why we assume it must always be a loving one. We all know of many examples of hostility between adult siblings. We can often trace these arguments back to childhood, or find they have always existed.

Many adults who are very close to their siblings today and support them actually lived in a state of almost constant conflict with them during childhood.

The older child might have mistreated the younger one, told tales about them, or stolen their toys.
The younger child, in helpless rage, might have admired, envied, and feared the older one. Or, their first stirrings of desire for freedom and justice might have been directed against the older sibling, the oppressor. Parents often say their children don’t get along and can’t figure out why.

It’s not hard to see that even a “good” child’s character is different from what we’d want in an adult. Children are completely self-centered. They feel their needs intensely and try to satisfy them ruthlessly. This is especially true when it comes at the expense of their rivals, other children, and particularly their brothers and sisters.

But this doesn’t make us call a child “wicked.” We call them “naughty.” They are not responsible for their bad actions, neither in our judgment nor in the eyes of the law. And rightly so. We expect that during childhood, feelings of altruism and a sense of morality will awaken. As the psychiatrist Meynert put it, a secondary ego (a more mature, social self) will cover and control the primary ego (the basic, instinctual self).

Morality probably doesn’t develop at the same time in every child. Also, the length of this amoral childhood period varies from person to person. If this morality fails to develop, we might call it “degeneration,” though it is clearly a matter of stalled development.

Where the primary, more primitive character has been covered by later development, it can still resurface, at least partly, if the person becomes ill with hysteria. The similarity between what we call the hysterical character and that of a naughty child is quite striking. Obsessional neurosis, on the other hand, is like an excessive morality, which heavily burdens the primary character as it tries to re-emerge.

So, many people who love their brothers and sisters today, and who would be devastated by their death, carry unconscious ill wishes towards them from long ago. These wishes can be fulfilled in dreams.

It is especially interesting to watch small children, up to three years old or a little more, and how they behave towards their younger siblings.

Until the new baby arrives, the child was the one and only.
Now, they are told that the stork has brought a new baby. The child looks at the newcomer and firmly declares, “The stork can take it away again!” It is my serious opinion that the child understands the disadvantage they face from this stranger.

A lady I know well, who gets along very well today with her sister (who is four years younger), told me this: When she heard the news of her sister’s arrival as a baby, she responded with a condition: “But I won’t give her my red cap.” Even if a child doesn’t grasp the situation fully until later, their hostility often starts from that moment.

I know of a case where a little girl, not yet three years old, tried to strangle the baby in its cradle. She sensed that nothing good would come from the baby’s continued presence. Children of this age are capable of intense and unmistakable jealousy.

Or, it can happen that the baby really does disappear soon after birth. Then, the older child is once again the center of all the affection in the house. But then, another new baby arrives, “sent by the stork.” Isn’t it quite reasonable that our darling child would wish for this new competitor to meet the same fate as the earlier one? That way, things would be as good for them as they were before, and during the time between babies.

Of course, under normal circumstances, how a child behaves toward a younger sibling often depends on the age difference. If the age gap is larger, an older girl might already start to show motherly instincts towards the helpless newborn.

Feelings of hostility towards siblings must be far more common in childhood than unobservant adults might notice.

In the case of my own children, who were born close together, I missed the chance to make these kinds of observations. I am making up for it now with my little nephew. His sole reign was disturbed after fifteen months by the arrival of a rival. True, I am told that the young boy behaves very politely towards his little sister; he kisses her hand and strokes her. But I am becoming convinced that even before he is two years old, he is using his ability to talk to criticize this little creature who, in his eyes, seems unnecessary. Whenever people talk about her, he joins the conversation and exclaims with displeasure, “Too little, too little.” In recent months, as he has developed well and moved past this dismissive attitude, he has found different reasons to suggest she doesn’t deserve so much attention. On every possible occasion, he reminds us: “She hasn’t got any teeth.”

We all recall the story of the eldest daughter of another sister. She was six years old at the time. For half an hour, she kept asking all her aunts to reassure her: “Lucie can’t understand that yet, can she?” Lucie was her rival, two-and-a-half years younger.

A Patient’s Dream: Siblings Flying Away

I have found dreams about a sibling’s death, reflecting this strong hostility, in every one of my female patients, for example. I found only one exception, which could easily be seen as proving the rule.

Once, during a consultation, I was explaining this idea to a lady. Her symptoms seemed relevant to this topic. To my surprise, she said she never had dreams of this kind. Then, another dream came to her mind, one that seemed to have nothing to do with it. She first had this dream when she was four years old, as the youngest child at the time. She had dreamed it many times since. In the dream, a group of children—all her brothers, sisters, and cousins—were playing in a meadow. Suddenly, they grew wings, flew up into the air, and were gone. She had no idea what the dream meant.

It is not hard for us to recognize this as a dream about the death of all her brothers and sisters in its original form, only slightly changed by censorship. I will offer this analysis: At the death of one of the children in her extended family (in this case, the children of two brothers were raised together like siblings), our little dreamer, not yet four years old, probably asked a wise adult, “What happens to children when they are dead?” The answer would have been, “They grow wings and become little angels.”

In her dream, fitting this explanation, all the brothers and sisters have wings like angels and—this is the main point—they fly away. Our little dreamer is left alone. Imagine it—the only one left from such a large group! The children playing in a meadow and then flying away from it surely brings to mind butterflies. It’s as if the child was influenced by the same combination of ideas that led ancient cultures to picture the soul, or psyche, with butterflies’ wings.

A Child’s Understanding of Death

Now, someone might object: “Okay, children might feel hostile towards their siblings. But how could a tender young child be so wicked as to wish their rivals or stronger playmates dead, as if every offense deserved the death penalty?”

Anyone who says this is not considering the child’s idea of “being dead.” For a child, this concept shares only the word, and very little else, with our adult understanding.

The child knows nothing of the horrors of decomposition, of freezing in a cold grave, or the terror of endless nothingness that the adult imagination finds unbearable (as all myths about the afterlife show).
The fear of death is unknown to a child. That is why a child will play with the terrible word and threaten another: “If you do that again, you’ll die, like Franz!” This makes their poor mother shudder. She may be unable to forget that most people born on this earth will not survive their childhood years.
Even at the age of eight, after a visit to a science museum, a child can say to his mother: “Mama, I love you so much; when you die, I’ll have you stuffed and set you up here in this room so that I can see you forever and ever!” That is how little a child’s idea of being dead resembles ours.

To a child, who is usually spared from seeing the suffering that precedes death, “being dead” is much the same as “being away.” It means the person is no longer disturbing the survivors. The child doesn’t distinguish how this absence comes about—whether it’s because of a journey, a separation, or death. If, in their early years, a child’s nurse is sent away and their mother dies a while later, these two events might merge in their memory when uncovered during analysis.

Many a mother has learned to her sorrow that children do not always miss absent parents intensely. Upon returning home after a summer trip of several weeks, she might ask about her children and hear, “The children haven’t asked after their mama, not once.” But if she really has made that final journey from which no one returns, the children will seem to have forgotten her at first. They will begin to remember her only later, in retrospect.

So, if a child has reasons for wishing another child away, there is nothing to stop them from expressing this wish in the form of wanting them dead. The emotional reaction to a wishful dream of death shows that, despite all the differences in understanding, the child’s wish is nevertheless somehow similar to a corresponding wish in an adult.

Death Wishes Towards Parents

If a child’s wish for their brothers or sisters to die is explained by their self-centeredness, which makes them see siblings as rivals, how can we explain a death-wish towards parents? Parents are the givers of love and fulfillers of needs for a child. A child should wish for their parents’ survival, simply from selfish motives.

We find a solution to this difficulty through experience: dreams of a parent’s death most frequently concern the parent who is the same sex as the dreamer. So, a man mostly dreams of his father’s death, and a woman mostly dreams of her mother’s death. I cannot state this as an absolute rule, but this pattern is so common that it needs to be explained by a factor of general importance.

Put simply, it is as though a sexual preference is established very early in life. It’s as though the boy sees his father as a rival for his mother’s love, and the girl sees her mother as a rival for her father’s love. Removing this rival could only benefit the child.

Before rejecting this idea as monstrous, let us take a good look at the real relationships between parents and children. We have to distinguish between what cultural demands (like the commandment to honor our parents) require of this relationship, and what daily observation shows us is actually happening.

There is more than one reason for hidden hostility in the relationship between parents and children. The conditions for creating wishes that cannot pass the mind’s internal censorship are plentiful.

Let us first consider the relationship between father and son. It is my opinion that the sacred status we have given the Ten Commandments dulls our perception of reality. Perhaps we do not dare to notice that most of humanity often prioritizes other things over obeying the commandment to honor one’s father and mother. At the lowest levels of human society, as much as at the highest, respect for parents often gives way to other interests.

Dark stories from myths and legends of early human society give us some idea of the father’s power and the ruthless way he often used it. This is quite unsettling. Cronos devours his children, much like a boar might devour a sow’s piglets. Zeus castrates his father and takes his place as ruler. The more absolute the father’s rule was in the ancient family, the more the son, as the rightful successor, was forced into the position of an enemy. And the greater his impatience became to gain power himself through his father’s death.

Even in our middle-class families, when a father refuses his son independence and the means to support himself, he helps to nurture the natural seeds of hostility in him. A physician is often in a position to notice that a son, in his grief at the loss of his father, cannot suppress his satisfaction at finally gaining his freedom. Fathers today habitually keep a rigid grip on the remnants of the terribly outdated traditional fatherly authority. Every writer is sure to make an impact if, like the playwright Ibsen, he brings the ancient battle between father and son to the forefront of his plot.

Conflicts between a daughter and her mother often arise when the daughter is growing up. The daughter may see her mother as someone holding her back while she desires her own sexual freedom. On the other hand, as the daughter blossoms, the mother is reminded that her own time for claiming sexuality is passing.

These kinds of relationships are easy for everyone to see. However, they don’t help us explain dreams about a parent’s death in people who have long held deep respect for their father and mother. Furthermore, our earlier discussions have led us to expect that death wishes towards parents originate in earliest childhood.

Childhood Wishes and Rivalries

This idea is confirmed with certainty when we analyze people with psychological neuroses. From these analyses, we learn that sexual wishes in a child—if we can call them that at such an early age—develop very early.

A girl’s first affection is often for her father.
A boy’s first infant desire is often for his mother.

Because of this, the father becomes an interfering rival for the boy. The mother becomes a rival for the girl. We have already explained, when discussing siblings, how little it takes for this feeling of rivalry in a child to lead to a death wish.

Often, the child’s preference is shaped by the parents’ own preferences. It’s natural for a husband to spoil his little daughter, and for a wife to take her son’s side. At the same time, both parents—as long as sexual attraction doesn’t cloud their judgment—will be strict in guiding the upbringing of their children, especially the child of the same sex. The child is very aware of these preferences and rebels against the parent who seems to oppose them.

For a child, being loved by adults means more than just satisfying a particular need. It also means they will get their way in other things too. So, the child follows their own sexual impulses. At the same time, they continue the pattern started by the parents, choosing between them along the same lines.

Signs of Early Affections

Most signs of these early childhood affections are usually overlooked. However, a few can be noticed even after the first few years of childhood.

An eight-year-old girl I knew used an opportunity when her mother left the dinner table to declare herself the new mother: “I’ll be mama now. Karl, do you want more vegetables? Do help yourself, please,” and so on.
A particularly bright and lively girl, not yet four years old, was very open about this aspect of child psychology. She stated plainly: “Mummy can go away now. Then daddy will have to marry me and I’ll be his wife.”

In children’s lives, such a wish does not mean the child doesn’t also love her mother dearly.

Consider a little boy. If he is allowed to sleep near his mother when his father is away, he enjoys this closeness. When his father returns, he has to go back to the nursery, often to someone he likes much less. A wish could easily form in his mind that his father should always be absent. This way, he could keep his place near his dear, sweet mother. One way to achieve this wish, in his mind, is if his father were dead. His experience has taught him one thing: “dead” people, like his grandfather perhaps, are always absent and never come back.

Learning from Adult Patients

Although these observations of small children fit the interpretation I’ve suggested, they don’t have the same convincing power as psychoanalyses of adult neurotics. Analyzing adults with neuroses can completely convince a physician.

When neurotics tell me their dreams related to these feelings, they often provide introductory information that makes interpreting them as wish-fulfillments unavoidable. One day, I found a lady in low spirits, her eyes red from crying. She said, “I don’t want to see my relatives again; the sight of me must fill them with horror.” Then, almost immediately, she told me she remembered a dream but didn’t know what it meant. She had dreamed it when she was four years old: A lynx or a fox is walking on the roof. Then something falls down, or she falls down. Then her mother is carried out of the house dead. At this, she weeps bitterly.

I had barely told her that this dream must mean a childhood wish to see her mother dead, and that this dream was likely why she thought her relatives were horrified by her. She promptly offered information that helped explain the dream. “Lynx-eyes” was a rude name a street boy had called her when she was very small. Also, when she was three years old, a tile had fallen from the roof onto her mother’s head, causing her to bleed heavily.

A Case Study: The Young Girl

I once had the chance to closely study a young girl who was experiencing various psychological states.

Confused State: When her illness began, she was in a state of raving confusion. She showed a particular disgust for her mother, hitting her and swearing at her whenever she came near her bed. At the same time, she remained loving and obedient towards a much older sister.
Apathetic State: This was followed by a clear-minded but emotionless state, with very disturbed sleep. In this phase, I began her treatment and analyzed her dreams. A huge number of them dealt, in more or less hidden ways, with the death of her mother. In one dream, she was attending an old woman’s funeral. In another, she saw herself and her sister sitting at a table, dressed in mourning clothes. There was no doubt about the meaning of these dreams.
Phobic State: As she improved further, hysterical phobias appeared. The most tormenting one was the fear that something terrible had happened to her mother. Wherever she was, she felt she had to hurry home to convince herself that her mother was still alive.

This case, along with what I had learned from others, was very instructive. It showed the different ways the mind can react to the same initial idea—in this case, hostility towards her mother. It was like the idea was translated into many languages.

In her confused state, her unconscious hostility towards her mother powerfully affected her actions. This was because, as I see it, the conscious part of her mind (the “second psychical agency”) was overwhelmed by the normally suppressed, more primitive part (the “first”).
Then, as she first grew calmer and her inner turmoil was suppressed, the mind’s censorship was restored. This hostility then had only dreams left as an outlet to fulfill the wish for her mother’s death.
As her state of normality grew stronger, it created excessive concern for her mother. This was a hysterical counter-reaction, a defensive response.

In this light, it is no longer difficult to understand why girls with hysteria so often cling to their mothers with such extreme tenderness.

A Case Study: The Young Man with Obsessions

Another time, I had the chance to look deep into the unconscious inner life of a young man. His obsessional neurosis had made him almost unable to live. He couldn’t go out into the street because he was tormented by the fear that he might kill every passer-by. He spent his days gathering evidence for an alibi in case he should be accused of any murder that happened in town. It goes without saying that he was a highly moral and cultured person.

The analysis—which, by the way, led to his recovery—revealed the basis of this painful obsession. It was murderous impulses towards his rather too-severe father. To his astonishment, these impulses had expressed themselves consciously when he was seven years old, though they certainly came from much earlier childhood years. After his father’s painful illness and death, when the young man was thirty years old, this obsessional self-accusation appeared. It was transferred to strangers in the form of this phobia.

In his way of thinking, anyone capable of wanting to hurl his own father from a mountaintop into an abyss cannot be trusted to spare the lives of those less close to him. So, he felt he was quite right to lock himself up in his room.

The Universality of Oedipal Feelings

In my extensive experience, parents play the main parts in the inner lives of all children who later become psychoneurotics (develop neuroses). Being in love with one parent and hating the other are essential parts of the psychological impulses forming at that time. These impulses are very important for later neurosis.

However, I do not believe that people with neuroses are sharply different from other, normally developing people in this respect. It’s not that neurotics create something absolutely new and unique to them. It is far more likely that these loving and hostile wishes towards parents are present in most children. Psychoneurotics merely show us these feelings in a magnified, more intense way. Occasional observations of normal children support this.

To support this insight, the ancient world has given us a legend. Its far-reaching and universal power can only be understood if we accept that the childhood psychology we have just discussed is similarly universal.

The Legend of King Oedipus

I am referring to the legend of King Oedipus and the play of that name by Sophocles. Oedipus was the son of Laius, King of Thebes, and Jocasta. He was abandoned as an infant because an oracle had told his father that his unborn son would be his murderer. Oedipus was rescued and grew up as a king’s son in a foreign court. Later, he consulted an oracle about his origins. He was advised to flee his home city because he was destined to become his father’s murderer and his mother’s husband. On the road from his supposed home city, he encountered King Laius and killed him in a sudden quarrel. Then he arrived before Thebes. He solved the riddle of the Sphinx, who was blocking his way. As a reward, the Thebans chose him as their king and gave him Jocasta’s hand in marriage. He reigned for a long time in peace and dignity. He had two sons and two daughters with his mother, Jocasta, though he did not know she was his mother. Eventually, a plague broke out. This led the Thebans to question the oracle again. This is where Sophocles’ tragedy begins. Messengers brought word that the plague would end when the murderer of Laius was driven from the land. But where was he? The search for the “faded traces of that far-distant crime” begins.

The action of the play consists of the gradually intensified and skillfully delayed revelation—much like the work of a psychoanalysis—that Oedipus himself is Laius’ murderer. It also reveals that he is the son of the murdered king and Jocasta. Shattered by the horrible things he unknowingly committed, Oedipus blinded himself and left his homeland. The oracle was fulfilled.

Why Oedipus Still Moves Us

Oedipus the King is what we call a tragedy of fate. Its tragic effect is supposed to come from the contrast between the all-powerful will of the gods and the useless struggles of humans threatened by disaster. The deeply moved spectator is meant to learn submission to divine will and to understand their own powerlessness.

Modern playwrights have tried to achieve a similar tragic effect by creating similar plots. But audiences have watched these plays unmoved, even when innocent humans struggled against a curse or oracle. These later tragedies of fate have failed to have an impact.

If Oedipus the King can move modern people just as deeply as it moved Sophocles’ Greek contemporaries, the reason must be this: the effect of Greek tragedy does not depend only on the contrast between fate and human will. It is found in the special nature of the subject matter that illustrates this contrast.

There must be a voice within us ready to accept the compelling force of fate in Oedipus. We can reject the arbitrary fates found in plays like Die Ahnfrau or other tragedies of fate, but not Oedipus’s. And such a factor is indeed present in the story of King Oedipus. His fate moves us only because it could have been our own. At our birth, the oracle pronounced the same “curse” upon us as it did on him. It was perhaps destined that we should all direct our first sexual impulses towards our mothers, and our first hatred and violent wishes against our fathers. Our dreams convince us of this. King Oedipus, who killed his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta, is only the fulfillment of our childhood wish.

However, we are more fortunate than Oedipus. Most of us, if we have not become psychoneurotic, have succeeded in detaching our sexual impulses from our mothers and forgetting our jealousy of our fathers. We shrink back from the figure of Oedipus—who fulfilled that ancient childhood wish—with all the force of the repression these wishes have since undergone within us.

As the poet reveals Oedipus’ guilt through investigation, he forces us to recognize our own inner lives. In our inner lives, those impulses, though suppressed, are still present. The chorus’s final words of warning—about Oedipus, once the greatest and most envied of men, being overwhelmed by misfortune—also refer to us and our pride. We have grown so wise and powerful in our own eyes since our childhood years. Like Oedipus, we live in ignorance of those wishes. These wishes are offensive to morality and forced upon us by Nature. Once they are revealed, there is little doubt we would all prefer to look away from the scenes of our childhood.

The Oedipal Dream in Sophocles’ Play

There is a clear sign in the text of Sophocles’ tragedy itself that the legend of Oedipus came from ancient dream material. This material contains the painful disturbance of our relationships with our parents caused by the first stirrings of our sexuality.

At a point when Oedipus has not yet learned the truth but is troubled by the oracle’s prophecy, Jocasta tries to console him. She refers to a dream that many people have, but which she thinks has no significance: “Nor need this mother-marrying frighten you; Many a man has dreamt as much. Such things Must be forgotten, if life is to be endured.”

The dream of having sexual relations with one’s mother is dreamed by many today, just as it was then. They often recount it with shock and amazement. This dream is clearly the key to the tragedy. It complements the dream of the father’s death. The Oedipus story is the imagination’s reaction to these two typical dreams.

Just as such dreams in adults are filled with feelings of disgust, the legend, too, must include horror and self-punishment in its content. Further changes to the story come from a misleading reinterpretation of the subject matter, which tries to use it for theological purposes. (This is similar to how the meaning of the exhibition dream was reinterpreted). The attempt to reconcile divine all-powerfulness with human responsibility is bound to fail with this material, as with any other.

General Importance of Death-Wish Dreams

I cannot leave the topic of typical dreams about the death of dear relatives without adding a few words about their general significance for the theory of dreams. These dreams are a very unusual case. In them, a dream-thought formed by a repressed wish manages to escape censorship and enter the dream unchanged. There must be very special conditions for this to happen.

I think two factors encourage these dreams:

The wish seems unthinkable: We cannot imagine a wish more alien to us than this one. We believe that such a wish “would not occur to us in our wildest dreams.” That is why the dream censorship has no defense against this monstrous idea. It’s like how Solon’s ancient laws in Athens had no punishment for killing one’s father (parricide), because the crime was considered unthinkable.
Daytime concern provides a mask: Very often, a concern from the daytime for the dear person’s life meets the suppressed and unsuspected wish halfway. This concern can only enter the dream by making use of the corresponding (but opposite) wish. The death wish is then able to hide behind the care and concern that was active during the day.

If we believe this all happens more simply—that we are just continuing our daytime concerns in our dreams at night—then we are ignoring the real explanation for these dreams of a loved one’s death. We would be holding onto an easily solvable puzzle unnecessarily.

Relation to Anxiety Dreams

It is also helpful to look at the relationship between these dreams and anxiety dreams. In dreams about the death of someone dear, the repressed wish has found a way to escape censorship and the distortion censorship usually imposes. When this happens, the dream is always accompanied by feelings of pain or grief.

Similarly, an anxiety dream only occurs if censorship has been entirely or partially overcome. On the other hand, censorship is overcome more easily if anxiety is already present as a current feeling, perhaps coming from physical (somatic) sources. In this way, it becomes clear what censorship tries to do when it distorts dreams: its purpose is to prevent the development of anxiety or other forms of distressing emotion.

The Self-Centeredness of Dreams

In the previous discussion, I mentioned the self-centeredness of a child’s mind. I will return to this to suggest a connection: dreams have also preserved this characteristic. All dreams are absolutely self-centered. In all of them, the self—our own dear self—appears, even if it is disguised. The wishes fulfilled in dreams are invariably this self’s wishes. Any dream that seems to be caused by interest in another person is only a deception, a show.

I will now analyze a few examples that seem to contradict this idea that dreams are always self-centered.

Example I: The Boy and the Roast Meat

A boy, not yet four years old, described his dream: He saw a big dish with vegetables and a large piece of roast meat on it. Suddenly, the meat was eaten up whole, all in one piece—not cut up. He did not see the person who ate it.

Who could this stranger be, enjoying such a feast of roast meat in our little one’s dream? What the boy experienced on the day of the dream should help us understand. For some days, he had been on a milk diet prescribed by his doctor. But on the evening of the dream, he was naughty. As a punishment, he was not given any supper. He had experienced such a fast once before and had been very brave. He knew he would get nothing to eat, but he didn’t dare show any sign of hunger. His upbringing was beginning to take effect.

This is already shown in his dream, which displays the beginnings of dream-distortion. There is no doubt that he himself was the person whose wishes were for such a lavish meal, specifically roast meat. But because he knew this was forbidden, he did not dare to sit down to the meal himself in the dream, as hungry children sometimes do. The person who ate the meat remained anonymous.

Example II: Famous Speakers

I once dreamed that I saw a new book displayed in a bookshop. It was part of a special series I usually buy, with fine bindings (these are often monographs on art, world history, or famous art locations). The new collection was called: “Famous Speakers” (or “Speeches”). The first volume was titled “Dr. Lecher.”

In my analysis, it seemed unlikely that the fame of Dr. Lecher, a politician known for his never-ending speeches in Parliament, would concern me in my dreams. However, a few days before the dream, I had taken on new patients for psychological treatment. I was now forced to speak for ten or eleven hours a day. So, I myself was that kind of never-ending speechmaker. The dream was about me.

Example III: My Son, the Nearsighted One

Another time, I dreamed that a university teacher I knew said: “My son, the myope” (meaning, my nearsighted son). Then, a dialogue of brief remarks and replies followed. After that, there was a third part of the dream where my sons and I were present. In the hidden meaning of the dream, the father, son, and Professor M. in the dream were just stand-ins for myself and my eldest son. I will discuss this dream further later because of another unique feature it has.

Example IV: Selfish Feelings Hidden Behind Care

The following dream is an example of truly selfish feelings hiding behind tender concern. Dream: My friend Otto is looking ill; his face is brown, and his eyes are protruding.

Otto is my family doctor. I am deeply indebted to him because for years he has cared for my children’s health. He treated them successfully when they were ill and gave them presents on every possible occasion. He visited on the day of the dream, and my wife remarked that he looked tired and stressed. At night, my dream gave him some symptoms of Basedow’s disease (a thyroid condition).

Anyone who ignores my rules for analyzing dreams would think this dream means I am worried about my friend’s health, and this worry shows up in the dream. This would contradict not only the idea that dreams are wish-fulfillments but also that they are driven by selfish impulses. But I would ask anyone who thinks this to explain why I would fear Otto had Basedow’s disease, when his appearance gave no reason for such a diagnosis.

My analysis, however, provides material from an event that happened six years ago: A small group of us, including Professor R., were traveling in deep darkness through a forest. Our driver, who was not entirely sober, caused the carriage to tumble down a hillside. Fortunately, we all escaped unhurt. We had to spend the night at the nearest inn, where news of our accident brought us much sympathy. One gentleman, showing clear symptoms of Basedow’s disease (brown facial skin and protruding eyes, just as in my dream, but no neck swelling), offered his help. Professor R., in his direct way, replied: “Just lend me a nightshirt.” “So sorry, I can’t,” the man answered, and left.

Continuing the analysis, it occurs to me that Basedow is not only the name of a physician but also of a famous educator. (Now that I am awake, I am not entirely sure about this fact.) My friend Otto is the person I have asked to take care of my children’s physical well-being, particularly during puberty (hence the connection to the “nightshirt”), if anything should happen to me.

By seeing my friend Otto in my dream with the symptoms of that unhelpful gentleman (Baron L.), I obviously mean to say: “If anything happens to me, I can expect just as little help from Otto for my children as Professor R. got from Baron L. on that occasion, despite his obliging offers.” The selfish motivation in this dream now seems clear.

But where is the wish-fulfillment? It’s not in getting revenge on my friend Otto, who often gets badly treated in my dreams. It is in the following association: By representing Otto as Baron L. in my dream, I also identified myself with someone else—Professor R. This is because I am demanding something of Otto, just as Professor R. demanded something of Baron L. And there it is. Professor R., with whom I would not normally dare to compare myself, is like me in one respect: he made his way independently outside the university system and only achieved his deserved professor title late in life. So, once again, my wish is: I want to become a professor! Even the phrase “late in life” is a wish-fulfillment, of course, because it means I will live long enough to see my boys through puberty myself.

Dreams of Flying and Falling

I have no personal experience of other typical dreams, like flying with ease or falling with anxiety. Everything I have to say about them comes from my psychoanalyses of patients. From that information, one must conclude that these dreams also repeat impressions from childhood. They relate to the movement games that children find so enjoyable. What uncle has not made a child “fly” by rushing through the room with them, arms outstretched? Or played “falling” by bouncing the child on his knees and then suddenly stretching out his legs? Or by lifting the child high and then suddenly pretending to remove his support? Children shout with pleasure and never get tired of wanting these games repeated, especially when some fear and dizziness are involved. Years later, they recreate the repetition in their dreams. But in their dreams, they leave out the hands that held them, so now they float and fall freely.

The pleasure all small children take in games like swinging and bouncing is well known. When they see acrobatic tricks in the circus, their memory of these sensations is renewed. For many young boys, a hysterical attack involves reproducing these kinds of tricks, which they perform with great skill. It’s not uncommon for these movement games, though harmless in themselves, to arouse sexual feelings.

To use a common word for all these games, it is the “romping” of childhood that is repeated in these dreams of flying, falling, feeling dizzy, and so on. But in the dream, the feeling of pleasure is often turned into its opposite: anxiety. However, as every mother knows, childhood romping itself often ends in quarrels and tears.

Thus, I have good reason to reject the explanation that dreams of flying and falling are caused by our sense of touch during sleep or by sensations of our lungs moving. As I see it, these sensations are themselves reproduced from the memory the dream is about. That is, they are the content of the dream, not its source.

Examination Dreams

Everyone who has finished their senior years at school with a major final examination complains about how persistently they are haunted by the dream that they have failed, have to repeat a year, or something similar. For someone who has an academic degree, this typical dream is replaced by another. This dream involves the fear of not passing their doctoral defense, even though in their sleep they might argue in vain that they have been practicing medicine for years, are a university lecturer, or head of a government department.

These are the unforgettable memories of punishments we suffered in childhood for our misdeeds. These memories stir within us again and attach themselves to the two decisive stages of our studies—those dreaded days of strict examinations. The “examination fear” of people with neuroses is also strengthened by this childhood anxiety.

Once we stop being schoolchildren, it is no longer our parents, nurses, or later, our teachers, who punish us. The unstoppable chain of cause and effect in life has taken over our further education. Now we dream of those major school or university examinations. And which of us has not trembled when facing them, even those who felt well-prepared? We have these dreams whenever we expect an outcome will punish us because there is something we have not done right, or have not finished properly, or whenever we feel the pressure of some responsibility.

Limitations in Explaining Typical Dreams

However, I certainly do not fool myself into thinking I can provide a full explanation for this set of typical dreams. In my attempts to do so, my material has really failed me. I must stick to the general viewpoint that all the sensations of movement and touch in these typical dreams are stirred up as soon as some psychological motive requires them. They can be ignored if such a need does not arise.

The connection to childhood experiences also seems certain to me, based on what I have learned from analyzing psychoneurotics. But what other meanings may have attached themselves to the memory of those sensations over the course of a person’s life—perhaps different for each individual, despite the typical appearance of these dreams—I cannot say. I would very much like to be in a position to fill this gap by carefully analyzing good examples.

To anyone who is surprised that I should complain about the lack of good material, despite how often people dream of flying, falling, teeth falling out, and the like, I owe an explanation. I have not had such dreams myself since I began focusing on dream interpretation. Moreover, the dreams of my neurotic patients, which are otherwise available to me, are not all interpretable. Often, they cannot be understood down to the last hidden detail of their intentions. A certain psychological force, which played a part in creating the neurosis and is reactivated when trying to resolve it, resists being interpreted down to the very last riddle.

However, the different ways this same underlying material is treated in ancient and more modern works reveal something important. They show the difference in the inner life of these two distant cultural periods. Specifically, they show the advance of repression in humankind’s emotional life over the centuries.

In Sophocles’ Oedipus, the child’s wishful fantasy that the story is based on is out in the open and realized—just like in dreams.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the same fantasy remains repressed. We only learn of its existence through the inhibiting effects it produces on the character—much like how we learn about a neurosis.

Hamlet’s Mysterious Hesitation

Interestingly, Hamlet has shown that a modern play can be overwhelmingly powerful even if we remain quite unclear about the hero’s character. The play is based on Hamlet’s hesitation in carrying out the task of revenge given to him by his father’s ghost. The text does not state the reasons or motives for this hesitation. Many different interpretations have not been able to identify them.

According to the view argued by Goethe, which is still dominant today, Hamlet represents the type of person whose ability to act is paralyzed by too much thinking. Others believe the poet tried to portray a sick, indecisive character, similar to someone with neurasthenia (a condition involving fatigue and anxiety).

However, the plot of the drama shows us that Hamlet should not appear entirely incapable of action. We see him act twice:

Once in a sudden passion, when he stabs the eavesdropper (Polonius) behind the curtain.
A second time purposefully and cunningly, when, with the casualness of a Renaissance prince, he sends the two courtiers (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) to the death that was intended for him.

So, what stops him from fulfilling the task given to him by his father’s ghost?

Understanding Hamlet’s Delay

Here again, we can use our knowledge that it is the particular nature of this task. Hamlet can do anything—except take revenge on the man who removed his father and took his father’s place beside his mother. This man, Claudius, shows Hamlet his own repressed childhood wishes realized.

The disgust that should push Hamlet to revenge is therefore replaced by self-blame and guilty feelings. These feelings accuse him of being, quite literally, no better than the sinner he has to punish. I have translated into conscious terms what must remain unconscious in the hero’s mind. If anyone wants to call Hamlet a hysteric (a person suffering from hysteria), I can only agree that this is a conclusion my interpretation allows.

Hamlet, Sexual Revulsion, and Shakespeare

The sexual disgust that Hamlet expresses in his conversation with Ophelia fits with this idea. This is the same sexual disgust that would increasingly take hold of the poet Shakespeare’s own mind in the following years, reaching its extreme in his play Timon of Athens.

Of course, it can only have been Shakespeare’s own inner life that we see in Hamlet. I note from Georg Brandes’ work on Shakespeare (1896) that the play was written immediately after Shakespeare’s father’s death in 1601. This was when Shakespeare’s mourning for his father was still fresh, and when his childhood feelings towards his father were presumably reawakened. It is also known that Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet (very similar to Hamlet) who died young.

Just as Hamlet deals with the relationship of a son to his parents, Macbeth, written around the same period, deals with the theme of childlessness.

Incidentally, just as every neurotic symptom, and even dreams, can be interpreted in multiple ways—and indeed demand such “over-interpretation” if we are to understand them fully—so too will every truly poetic creation have arisen from more than one motive and more than one impulse in the poet’s mind. Such works will always allow for more than one interpretation. What I have attempted here is only an interpretation of the deepest layer of impulses in the mind of the creative poet.

VI THE DREAM-WORK

Up until now, every attempt to solve the problems dreams present has focused directly on the dream’s manifest content. This is the surface story of the dream as we remember it. People have tried to interpret dreams based on this manifest content. Or, if they didn’t try to interpret it, they used the manifest content to support their judgments about the dream.

Our approach is different. We see a new kind of mental material that comes between the dream’s content and the results of our thinking about it. This is the latent dream-content, or the dream-thoughts, which we reach through our analysis. We find the solution to the dream from this hidden, latent content, not from the obvious, manifest content.

This gives us a new task that didn’t exist before. We need to investigate:

The relationship between the manifest dream-content (the surface story) and the latent dream-thoughts (the hidden meaning).
The processes by which the latent thoughts turn into the manifest dream.

Like Two Languages or a Picture-Puzzle

The dream-thoughts (hidden meaning) and the dream-content (surface story) are like two versions of the same information presented in two different languages. Or, more accurately, the dream-content seems like a translation of the dream-thoughts into a different way of expressing things. We are supposed to learn its symbols and rules by comparing the original (dream-thoughts) and the translation (dream-content). Once we understand these, the dream-thoughts will become easy for us to grasp.

The dream-content is like a set of hieroglyphs. Each symbol needs to be translated one by one into the language of the dream-thoughts. We would obviously be wrong if we tried to read these symbols based on their literal picture value instead of what they represent as signs.

Imagine you have a picture-puzzle, like a rebus:

A picture of a house with a boat on its roof.
Then, a single letter of the alphabet.
Then, a picture of a running person with their head missing, and so on.

Now, I could make the mistake of saying that this combination and its parts are nonsense. A boat doesn’t belong on the roof of a house. A person without a head cannot run. Besides, the person is bigger than the house. And if the whole thing is supposed to be a landscape, single letters of the alphabet don’t fit in because they don’t appear in nature.

Obviously, the correct solution to the rebus can only be found if I don’t make such objections about the whole puzzle or its details. Instead, I must take the trouble to replace each picture with a syllable or a word that the picture can represent through some association. The words connected in this way are no longer nonsense. They can form a beautiful and meaningful poetic saying.

A dream is a picture-puzzle of this kind. Our predecessors who tried to interpret dreams made the mistake of judging the rebus as if it were a simple drawing. Looked at that way, it seemed to have no meaning or value.

(a) The Work of Condensation

When we compare the dream-content (surface story) with the dream-thoughts (hidden meaning), the first thing we notice is that a huge amount of condensation has occurred. The dream is brief, sparse, and short compared to the wide range and richness of the dream-thoughts.

If written down, the dream might fill half a page.
The analysis containing the dream-thoughts will need six, eight, or even twelve times as much space.

The ratio of condensation varies for different dreams, but its purpose seems consistent. Usually, when we assume the dream-thoughts we’ve uncovered are all the material there is, we underestimate how much compression has happened. Further interpretation can often reveal fresh thoughts hidden behind the dream.

We have already noted that one can never be certain of having interpreted a dream completely. Even when the solution seems satisfying and complete, it is always possible for another meaning to reveal itself through the same dream. So, the exact amount of condensation is, strictly speaking, impossible to determine.

One conclusion from this imbalance between dream-content and dream-thoughts might be that a massive condensation of mental material happens when a dream is formed. However, someone might raise an objection that seems very tempting at first. We often feel like we’ve dreamed a great deal all through the night and then forgotten most of it. If this is true, the dream we remember when we wake would just be a small piece of the total dream-work. If only we could remember the entire dream, it might be as extensive as the dream-thoughts.

This is certainly true in part. It’s clear that a dream is remembered most faithfully when we try to recall it soon after waking. Its memory becomes more and more sketchy towards evening. On the other hand, the feeling that we have dreamed much more than we can reproduce very often rests on an illusion. The reasons for this illusion will be explained later. Moreover, the idea that condensation is at work in dream formation is not disproven by the possibility of forgetting parts of our dreams. The activity of condensation is proven by the masses of ideas connected to the separate bits of the dream that we do retain. If a lot of the dream is indeed lost to memory, this mainly cuts off our access to a fresh set of dream-thoughts. There is nothing to justify expecting that the lost parts of the dream would only have related to the thoughts we already know from analyzing the parts we remember.

Faced with the huge number of ideas that analysis can offer for every element in the dream-content, many readers might doubt whether all the things that come to mind during analysis can truly be counted as dream-thoughts. That is, can we assume all these thoughts were already active during sleep and played a part in forming the dream? Or, could it be that new thought-associations arise during analysis that had no part in forming the dream?

I can only partially agree with this doubt. It is true that some thought-associations do arise only during analysis. But each time, one can confirm that these new associations only form between thoughts that are already connected in some other way within the dream-thoughts. The new associations are like parallel connections or short-circuits, made possible because other, deeper connecting paths already exist.

As for the majority of the thoughts revealed in analysis, we have to recognize that they were already active in forming the dream. This is because after working through a chain of these thoughts, which might seem completely unrelated to the dream’s formation, one suddenly comes upon a thought that is represented in the dream-content. This thought is essential to its interpretation but was only accessible by following that particular chain of thoughts. For an example of this, see the dream of the botanical monograph, which appears to be the result of an amazing amount of condensation, even though I have not reported its analysis in full.

But how, then, should we imagine the state of the mind during the sleep that comes before dreaming?

Are all the dream-thoughts present side by side?
Do they follow one after the other?
Or are there several simultaneous trains of thought, formed from different starting points, which then come together?

I don’t think it’s necessary to create an imaginary picture of the mental conditions during dream formation. However, we should not forget that this involves unconscious thinking. The process could easily be very different from the purposeful, conscious reflection we are aware of in ourselves.

Regardless, the fact that dream formation is based on condensation is established beyond question. Now, how does this condensation happen?

When we consider that only a very few of the dream-thoughts found by analysis are represented in the dream by one of their specific elements, one might suppose that condensation happens by exclusion. The dream is not a faithful translation or a point-by-point projection of the dream-thoughts, but an extremely incomplete and fragmented reproduction. However, as we shall soon discover, this view is very inadequate. Still, let us use it as a starting point and ask: if only a few elements of the dream-thoughts reach the dream-content, what conditions determine their selection?

To shed light on this question, we will focus on those elements in the dream-content that must have fulfilled the conditions we are looking for. The best material for this investigation will be a dream formed by a particularly strong process of condensation. I will choose the dream of the botanical monograph.

I. Dream of the Botanical Monograph

Dream Content: I have written a monograph (a specialized book) on a species of plant (the type is unclear). The book is lying in front of me. I am just turning over a folded color illustration. Bound into the book is a dried specimen of the plant.

The most immediately striking element in this dream is the botanical monograph. This comes from impressions on the day of the dream. I had indeed seen a monograph on the species ‘cyclamen’ displayed in a bookshop window. The dream doesn’t mention the species, only keeping the idea of a monograph and its connection to botany.

The ‘botanical monograph’ quickly shows its connection to the work on cocaine I once wrote.

From cocaine, the train of thought moves, on one hand, to a Festschrift (a commemorative publication) and to certain events in a university laboratory.
On the other hand, it moves to my friend, the eye specialist Dr. Königstein, who was involved in the medical application of cocaine. The figure of Dr. K. links up with my memory of the interrupted conversation I had with him the previous evening, and to my various thoughts on payment for medical services among colleagues. This conversation is actually the active trigger of the dream. The monograph on cyclamen is also a factor, but an unimportant one. As I see it, the botanical monograph in the dream turns out to be a common link between two experiences of the day. It was taken unchanged from the unimportant impression (the cyclamen book) but is linked by many associative connections with the mentally significant experience (the conversation with Dr. K.).

But it’s not just the combined idea ‘botanical monograph’ that has many connections. Each of its elements—‘botanical’ and ‘monograph’—separately enters deeper and deeper into the maze of dream-thoughts through multiple links.

Botanical is the link to my memories of:
- The figure of Dr. Gärtner (Gardener).
- His ‘blooming’ wife.
- A patient of mine named Flora.
- The lady with the forgotten flowers whose story I recounted.
Dr. Gärtner leads again to the laboratory and to my conversation with Königstein. The reference to both patients also belongs in that same conversation.
From the woman with the flowers, the dream-thoughts branch off along one path to my wife’s favorite flowers. Another route ends in the title of the monograph I saw briefly during the day.
Additionally, ‘botanical’ recalls an episode at school and an examination from my university days.
A new theme brought up in that conversation—my favorite hobbies—is linked via what I jokingly call my favorite flower, the artichoke, to the train of thoughts that started from the forgotten flowers.
Behind ‘artichoke’ is hidden the memory of Italy on one hand, and a childhood scene on the other, where I began my relationship with books, which has since become so close.

So, ‘botanical’ is a real point where many trains of thought contributing to the dream come together. I can confirm that these were all very suitably connected with one another in that conversation. This is where we find ourselves in the middle of a thought-factory where, as in the weaver’s masterpiece: One thrust of his foot, and a thousand threads Invisibly shift, and hither and thither The shuttles dart—just once he treads And a thousand strands all twine together.

Monograph in the dream touches again on two themes: how specialized my studies were and how expensive my hobbies are.

This first examination suggests that the elements ‘botanical’ and ‘monograph’ were allowed into the dream because they have the widest range of contacts with the most dream-thoughts. That is, they represent points where a great number of dream-thoughts converge. They also have many meanings for the interpretation of the dream. The underlying fact can also be put differently: each element of the dream-content turns out to be over-determined—to be represented many times and in many ways in the dream-thoughts.

We will learn more if we examine the remaining parts of the dream for their appearance in the dream-thoughts.

The colored plate I unfold refers to a new theme (my colleagues’ criticism of my work) and to one already in the dream (my hobbies). Besides these, it refers to the childhood memory where I pulled apart the leaves of a book with colored plates.
The dried specimen of the plant touches on my school experience with the herbarium (a collection of dried plants) and gives particular emphasis to this memory.

So, I see the kind of relationship this is between the dream-content and the dream-thoughts:

Not only are the elements of the dream determined many times over by various thoughts,
But also, the individual dream-thoughts are represented in the dream by several different elements.

The path of associations leads from one element of the dream to several dream-thoughts, and from one dream-thought to several dream-elements. Thus, a dream is not formed by one dream-thought simply providing a shorthand term for the dream-content, and then the next dream-thought providing another shorthand term as its deputy, like how representatives are elected from the population for Parliament. Rather, the entire mass of dream-thoughts undergoes a certain procedure. During this procedure, those elements with the most and best support are most qualified to be included in the dream-content. This is more like an election using a list system (where parties get seats based on total votes, and individuals are chosen from the party’s list).

Whatever dream I analyze in this way, I always find the same principles confirmed: the elements formed into the dream are drawn from the entire mass of dream-thoughts. Each element, in its relation to the dream-thoughts, seems to be determined many times over.

It is certainly useful to demonstrate this relationship between dream-content and dream-thoughts with a new example. This one is remarkable for the particularly complex way its interacting associations are intertwined. The dream comes from a patient I am treating for claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces). It will soon become clear why I feel prompted to give this exceptionally clever piece of dreaming the heading:

II. ‘A Pleasant Dream’

Dream: He is traveling with a large private group to X Street, where a modest inn is located (which is not actually the case). A play is being performed in its rooms. One moment he is a spectator, the next an actor. Finally, someone says they will have to change their clothes to return to town. Some of the group are directed to rooms on the ground floor, others to rooms on the first floor. Then a quarrel breaks out. The ones upstairs are annoyed that those downstairs are not yet ready, so they cannot come down. His brother is upstairs; he himself is downstairs. He is annoyed at his brother for being hurried. (This part is unclear.) In any case, it was already decided upon their arrival who should be upstairs and who should be downstairs. Then he is walking by himself up the slope made by X Street towards the town. His steps are so heavy, so difficult, that he cannot move from the spot. An elderly gentleman joins him and complains angrily about the King of Italy. Then, at the end of the slope, he walks with much greater ease.

The difficulties he had in climbing the slope were so distinct that when he woke up, he wondered for a while whether it was a dream or reality.

The manifest content (the surface story) hardly makes one praise this dream. Against my usual rules, I shall begin with the part described by the dreamer as the most distinct.

The difficulty dreamed of, and probably felt as it was dreamed—the laborious climb accompanied by dyspnoea (difficulty breathing)—is one of the actual symptoms my patient had displayed years ago. These symptoms were then attributed, along with others, to tuberculosis (though it was probably a hysterical imitation of the illness). We are already familiar with this peculiar sensation of inhibited movement from exhibition dreams (dreams of being naked and unable to move). Here again, we find it as material that is present and always available to be used for any other representational purpose in a dream.

The part of the dream where climbing was difficult at first and then became easy reminded the patient, as he described it, of the well-known and masterly opening of Alphonse Daudet’s novel, Sappho. In the novel, a young man carries his beloved up a staircase. At first, she is as light as a feather. But the further he climbs, the more heavily she weighs in his arms. This scene symbolizes the course of their relationship. Daudet uses it to warn young men not to waste their serious affections on girls of low social standing and questionable pasts.

Although I knew that my patient had recently had a love affair with an actress and had broken it off, I didn’t really expect this interpretation to be confirmed. In any case, the situation in Sappho was the reverse of the one in the dream. In the dream, the climb was difficult at the start and became easier later. In the novel, the symbolism only worked if what was taken easily at first turned out to be a heavy burden at the end.

To my astonishment, my patient said that my interpretation matched very well with the content of the play he had seen the previous evening. The play was called Rund um Wien (Round about Vienna). It was about the life of a young woman who starts as a good girl but then enters the world of high-class courtesans. She has affairs with important men and so ‘rises high up,’ but finally sinks ‘down lower and lower.’ The play had reminded him of another one performed years before, titled Von Stufe zu Stufe (From Step to Step), which had advertisements showing a flight of stairs.

Further Interpretation of ‘A Pleasant Dream’

Now for more interpretation. The actress with whom he had this recent, association-filled affair lived in X Street. There is no inn (hostelry) in that street. However, he had spent part of the summer in Vienna because of this lady and had stayed [the German word used, abgestiegen, literally means “got down”] at a small hotel nearby. As he left the hotel, he said to the cab driver, “At least I haven’t caught any vermin, I’m glad to say.” This was another of his phobias. The cabby replied, “But how can anyone stay there! That’s not a proper hotel, it’s only a hostelry.”

The idea of an inn immediately linked in his memory to a quotation from a poem by Uhland: “Not long ago I was a guest, My host was wond’rous kind.” But the host in Uhland’s poem is an apple tree.

Now, a second quotation continues this train of thought, this time from Goethe’s Faust, where Faust is dancing with a young witch: Faust: A pleasant dream once came to me: I saw a lovely apple-tree, And two fine apples hanging there; I climbed to pick that golden pair. The Fair One (the young witch): You men were always apple-mad; Adam in Eden was just as bad. I’ve apples in my garden too— How pleased I am to pleasure you!

There is no doubt at all about what the apple tree and the apples mean here. A beautiful bosom was one of the main charms that attracted my patient to his actress.

The connections revealed by the analysis gave us every reason to assume that the dream goes back to an impression from childhood. If this was correct, it had to relate to the wet-nurse of this nearly thirty-year-old man. For a child, the nurse’s breast is indeed a kind of “hostelry.” The nurse, as well as Daudet’s Sappho, appears to be an allusion to the lover he had recently broken up with.

My patient’s elder brother also appears in the dream. The brother is “up above,” and the patient himself is “down below.” This is again a reversal of their real relationship. To my knowledge, the brother has lost his social position, while my patient has maintained his. When recounting the dream, the patient avoided saying his brother was ‘up above’ and he himself was ‘on the ground floor.’ That would have been too obvious a statement, because in Vienna, we say of people who have lost wealth and position that they are ‘on the ground floor.’ This is a similar metaphor to saying ‘they have come down in the world.’

There must be some meaning to representing something in reverse at this point in the dream. The reversal must also apply to another connection between the dream-thoughts and the dream-content. There is a clue as to where this reversal is found. Clearly, it is at the end of the dream, where a similar reversal applies to the climbing theme as it relates to Sappho. Then, it easily becomes clear what reversal is meant:

In Sappho, the man carries the woman with whom he has a sexual relationship.
In the dream, the situation is reversed: the woman carries the man. Since this can only happen in childhood, the reference is again to the nurse, who might find it hard to carry the baby she is breastfeeding. The end of the dream sums it up by representing Sappho and the nurse with the same allusion.

Just as the name Sappho, chosen by the poet Daudet, refers to a lesbian disposition, the parts of the dream involving figures “above” and “below” point to the dreamer being preoccupied with sexual fantasies. These fantasies, being suppressed desires, are not unconnected with his neurosis. The interpretation of the dream itself does not indicate whether these are fantasies or memories of actual events. It only provides us with the content of the thought and leaves it to us to decide its reality. Actual and imaginary events initially appear to be of equal value here—and not only here, but also in the creation of more important mental formations than dreams.

A large social gathering, as we already know, signifies a secret. The brother is nothing but a representative of all his later rivals for women, introduced into the childhood scene by ‘imagining back.’ The episode of the gentleman who complained angrily about the King of Italy relates again to the intrusion of lower-class people into higher society, through a recent, unimportant experience. It is as if, alongside Daudet’s warning to the young man, a similar warning was meant for the nursing child.

III. Dream of the May-Beetles (An Elderly Lady)

As a third example for studying condensation in dream formation, I will report the partial analysis of another dream from an elderly lady I was treating with psychoanalysis. Because of the severe anxiety she suffered from, her dream thoughts contained a wealth of sexual material. Learning about this material disconcerted and alarmed her. Since I am not able to follow the interpretation of her dream to the very end, the dream material seems to break up into a number of groups without visible connection.

Dream Content: She recalls that she has two may-beetles in a box. She must set them free, or else they will suffocate. She opens the box; the beetles are exhausted. One of them flies up and out of the opened window. But the other is squashed by the window frame as she is closing the window, which someone wants her to do. (She expresses disgust).

Analysis: Her husband is away on a journey. Her fourteen-year-old daughter sleeps in the bed next to her. In the evening, the girl drew her attention to a moth that had fallen into her water-glass. But she neglected to rescue it, and the next morning, she felt very sorry for the poor little creature. The book she had been reading that evening told how some boys threw a cat into boiling water and described the animal’s convulsions. These are the two relatively unimportant events that triggered the dream.

The theme of cruelty to animals continues to occupy her thoughts. Years before, when they were staying in a certain district for the summer, her daughter had been very cruel to all kinds of creatures. She made a collection of butterflies and asked her mother for arsenic to kill them. On one occasion, a moth flew around the room for a long time with a pin through its body. Another time, some caterpillars being kept until they turned into chrysalises were left to starve. When still very young, the same child used to pull the wings off beetles and butterflies. Today, she would be horrified by all these acts of cruelty; she has grown so tender-hearted.

My patient’s thoughts are occupied by this contradiction in her daughter. It reminds her of another contradiction, between appearance and attitude, as presented by George Eliot in the novel Adam Bede. In the book, there is a girl who is beautiful but vain and very stupid, alongside another who is plain but high-minded. There’s an aristocrat who seduces the silly little thing, and a working-man of noble feeling who behaves accordingly. “You can’t tell that from looking at people’s appearance,” she thinks. Who could tell from looking at her that she was tormented by desires of the senses?

The same year her little girl made the butterfly collection, the region suffered badly from a plague of may-beetles. The children waged war on the beetles, squashing them mercilessly. She saw a man tear off their wings and then eat their bodies. She herself was born in May and had been married in May. Three days after the wedding, she wrote a letter home to her parents saying how happy she was. But she was not in the least happy.

On the evening before the dream, she had been looking through old letters. She had read out various serious and amusing letters to her family. These included one very ridiculous letter from a piano teacher who had tried to court her as a girl, and also one from an aristocratic admirer.

She blames herself that one of her daughters had gotten hold of a “bad book” by Maupassant. The arsenic demanded by her small daughter reminds her of the arsenic pills that restored youthful powers to a character (the Duc de Mora) in Daudet’s novel Le Nabab.

Regarding ‘setting free’ in the dream, a passage from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute occurs to her: “I cannot force you to love, But I will not give you your freedom.”

Regarding the may-beetles, there is also a line from Kleist’s play Das Käthchen von Heilbronn: “You are as much in love with me as a may-beetle.” And between these thoughts, a line from Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser: “Because your soul is filled with evil desire—”.

She lives in a state of worry and anxiety about her absent husband. The fear that something might happen to him on his journey is expressed in numerous daytime fantasies. Shortly before, during her analysis, she had discovered unconscious thoughts complaining about his ‘senility.’ The wishful thought disguised by this dream can perhaps best be guessed if I mention that several days before the dream, while going about her daily business, she was suddenly alarmed by an urgent thought she had aimed at her husband: ‘Go hang yourself.’ It turned out that a few hours earlier, she had read somewhere that a powerful erection occurs when a man is hanged. It was the wish for this erection, returning from its repressed state in this alarming disguise. ‘Go hang yourself’ meant the same as ‘Get an erection at all costs.’ Dr. Jenkins’s arsenic pills in Le Nabab connect here. But my patient also knew that the strongest aphrodisiac, cantharides (‘Spanish flies’), is prepared by crushing beetles. This is the meaning that the main component of the dream-content—the beetles—is pointing towards.

Opening and closing the window is an issue of constant dispute with her husband. She herself needs fresh air to sleep; her husband dislikes it. The main symptom she was complaining of in these days is exhaustion.

Condensation Methods and Over-Determination

In reporting these three dreams, I have tried to show where dream elements recur in the dream-thoughts. But since none of these dreams was analyzed completely, it will probably be more useful to look at a dream where the analysis is reported more fully. We can use that to demonstrate the over-determination of the dream-content (how each dream element has multiple meanings or origins). For this, I shall select the dream of Irma’s injection.

It will not be difficult for us to see from this example that the work of condensation uses more than one method in forming dreams. The main figure in the dream-content is my patient Irma. She is seen with her real-life features and so, in the first place, represents herself.

However, her posture as I examine her at the window is taken from my memory of someone else—the lady I wished were my patient instead, as the dream-thoughts indicate.
When Irma shows signs of diphtheria, recalling my concern for my eldest daughter, she comes to stand for this child of mine. Behind my daughter is hidden the figure of the patient I lost to a severe toxic condition, a patient who shared my daughter’s name.
As the dream proceeds, the meaning of Irma’s person changes (without any change in her visible image). She turns into one of the children being examined at the public children’s clinic, where my friends demonstrate differences in their intellectual gifts. This transition was obviously made by way of my little daughter.
By her reluctance to open her mouth, this same figure of Irma becomes an allusion to another lady I once examined, and, in the same context, to my own wife.
In the diseased changes I discover in her throat, moreover, I gathered together allusions to still other people.

All these people I encountered while tracing the meaning of ‘Irma’ do not appear in the dream in their own forms. They are hidden behind the dream-figure of ‘Irma.’ In this way, ‘Irma’ becomes a collective image, though it has contradictory features. Irma becomes the stand-in for these other people who were sacrificed in the process of condensation. I have her experience, item by item, everything that reminds me of them.

I can also create a collective figure for dream condensation in a different way: by combining the actual features of two or more people into one dream image.

This is how the figure of Dr. M. in my dream came about. He has Dr. M.’s name, speaks and acts like him. But his physical build and his illness belong to someone else—my eldest brother. One single characteristic, his paleness, is doubly determined, as both people were pale in real life.
In the dream of my uncle, Dr. R. is a similar composite figure. But here, the dream image was created in yet another way. I did not combine some features of one person with some features of another, thereby reducing the remembered image of each. Instead, I used the procedure Francis Galton used for his family portraits: I projected both images onto each other. In this way, the features they have in common emerge more prominently. The features that do not match cancel each other out and become blurred in the image. In the dream of my uncle, the reinforced characteristic that stands out among blurred facial features (blurred because they belong to two people) is the yellow beard. This yellow beard also contains an allusion to my father and to myself, through the association with growing gray.

The creation of collective and composite figures is one of the main methods of condensation in dreams. We will discuss them again soon in a different context.

Similarly, the idea of ‘dysentery’ in the dream of Irma’s injection is determined multiple times over. On one hand, by its sound resemblance to ‘diphtheria.’ On the other, by its association with the patient I sent to the Near East whose hysteria was going unrecognized.

The reference to ‘propyls’ in the dream turns out to be an interesting case of condensation. The dream-thoughts did not contain ‘propyls,’ but ‘amyls.’ One might think a simple displacement occurred in forming the dream. That is true. However, this displacement also serves the purposes of condensation, as the following addition to my analysis will show. If my attention pauses for a moment at the word ‘propyls,’ what occurs to me is its sound similarity to the word ‘Propylea’ (the monumental gateway to the Acropolis in Athens). But there are Propylea not only in Athens but also in Munich. Munich was the town where, a year before my dream, I visited my friend—who was very ill at the time. This friend is unmistakably referred to by the chemical trimethylamine, which appears in the dream immediately after ‘propyls.’

I shall pass over the striking fact that, here and elsewhere in dream analysis, associations of the most varied quality are used to connect thoughts as if they were of equal value. I will give in to the temptation to imagine, visually, the process by which ‘amyls’ was replaced by ‘propyls’ in the dream-thoughts.

Suppose, on one hand, there is the group of ideas around my friend Otto. He does not understand me, thinks I am wrong, and gives me a liqueur smelling of amyls. On the other hand, connected by contrast, are the ideas relating to my Berlin friend (Wilhelm). He does understand me, would say that I am right, and I owe him much valuable information, including his thoughts on the chemistry of sexuality.

From Otto’s group of thoughts, what should especially attract my attention is determined by the recent events that triggered the dream. ‘Amyls’ belongs to these distinct elements, predestined to enter the dream-content. The wealth of ideas in the ‘Wilhelm’ group gets its energy from its contrast with ‘Otto.’ The elements in the ‘Wilhelm’ group that allude to those already aroused in the ‘Otto’ group are given prominence.

Indeed, in this entire dream about my friend Otto and my friend Wilhelm (from Berlin), I move back and forth. I go from one person who annoys me (Otto) to another whom I can contrast with him as I please (Wilhelm). Point for point, I can bring up my friend to counter my adversary.

Thus, ‘amyls’ from the Otto group of thoughts also awakens memories from the field of chemistry in the Wilhelm group. The chemical trimethylamine, supported by many connections, then enters the dream-content. ‘Amyls’ too might have been able to enter the dream-content unchanged. However, it is influenced by the ‘Wilhelm’ group of thoughts. Out of all the memories covered by Wilhelm’s name, one element is picked out that can provide a double meaning or connection for ‘amyls.’

‘Propyls’ is close to ‘amyls’ for this association. It is met halfway by thoughts of Munich and the Propylea (a famous gateway) from the ‘Wilhelm’ sphere of ideas. In the combined idea of ‘propyls-Propylea,’ both fields of thought come together. As if by a compromise, this middle element then enters the dream-content. A mediating common factor is created here, which allows for multiple connections to different dream-thoughts. This makes it very clear that if an element is connected to many dream-thoughts (is over-determined), its entry into the dream-content is made much easier. For this mediating factor to be formed, our attention is shifted from what is actually meant (amyls) to something closely associated with it (propyls, via Propylea).

Summary of Condensation Functions

Studying the dream about Irma’s injection has already given us insight into the processes of condensation in dream formation. We have been able to identify particular functions of the work of condensation:

Its selection of elements that occur many times in the dream-thoughts.
Its formation of new unities (like collective figures and composite structures).
Its production of mediating common factors (elements that link different trains of thought).

What the larger purpose of condensation may be, and what helps to bring it about, are questions we will not address until we deal with all the mental processes of dream formation in relation to one another. For now, let us simply confirm that condensation in dreams creates a remarkable relationship between dream-thoughts and dream-content.

Condensation of Words and Names

The work of condensation in a dream can be most easily understood if it has selected words and names as its objects. Words are often treated as things in dreams. They then go through the same combinations, displacements, substitutions, and also condensations as the representations of actual things.

I. The “Norekdal” Style

A colleague once sent me an article he had written. In my judgment, a modern physiological discovery had been overestimated in it. Above all, it was discussed in extravagant language. The next night, I dreamed a sentence that clearly referred to this article: “That is a really norekdal style.”

At first, I had difficulty analyzing this word formation. There was little doubt that it was created as a parody, imitating superlatives like ‘colossal’ and ‘pyramidal.’ But it was not easy to say where it came from. Finally, I broke down this unusual word into two names: ‘Nora’ and ‘Ekdal,’ from two well-known plays by Ibsen. I had previously read a newspaper article about Ibsen by the same author whose latest work I had criticized in this way in my dream.

II. The “Mais-tollmütz”

One of my patients told me about a short dream that ended in a nonsensical word combination. She is with her husband at some peasant celebration and then says: “That mill end in a general Mais-tollmütz.” In her dream, this is accompanied by the vague thought that it is a pudding made of maize (corn), a kind of polenta.

The analysis broke the word down into:

Mais (German for maize/corn)
toll (German for crazy)
mannstoll (German for man-crazy, like nymphomaniac)
Olmütz (a town name) All of these were recognizable as remnants from a conversation at the dinner table. Hidden behind ‘Mais,’ as well as an allusion to the recently opened Jubilee Exhibition, were the words: Meissen (a Meissen porcelain figurine of a bird); Miss (her relative’s English governess had traveled to Olmütz); and mies (a word from Jewish slang meaning nasty or miserable, used jokingly). A long chain of ideas and connections started from each separate syllable of this jumbled word.

III. “Tutelrein”

A young man had his doorbell rung late in the evening by an acquaintance handing him a visiting card. That night, he had this dream: A workman is waiting late at night to fix the room-telephone. After the workman has gone, it still keeps ringing, not continuously but only intermittently. The servant brings the man back, and he says: “It’s odd how even people who are tutelrein don’t know how to deal with this kind of thing.”

As we see, the unimportant event that triggered the dream (the late-night doorbell) refers to only one element in it. It only becomes significant once it has attached itself to an earlier experience of the dreamer’s. This earlier experience was also minor in itself but had been given the significance of a stand-in (a proxy). As a boy living with his father, when sleepy, he once spilled a glass of water on the floor. The water soaked the cable of the room-telephone, and the continuous ringing disturbed his father’s sleep. Since continuous ringing relates to getting wet, the intermittent ringing in the dream is then used to represent drops falling.

But the word ‘tutelrein’ can be analyzed in three ways, pointing to three kinds of dream material:

‘Tutel’ relates to ‘Curatel,’ which means guardianship.
‘Tutel’ (perhaps ‘Tuttel’) is a vulgar term for a woman’s breast.
The component ‘rein’ (clean) combines with the first syllables of ‘Zimmertelegraph’ (room-telephone) to form ‘zimmerrein’ (house-trained). This has a lot to do with wetting the floor and also echoes a name present in the dreamer’s family.

IV. “Hearsing” and “Fliess”

In a fairly long, chaotic dream of my own, apparently centered on a journey by ship, it happens that the next landing station is called Hearsing and the one after that Fliess. ‘Fliess’ is the name of my friend in Berlin, which has often been the destination of my journeys. ‘Hearsing’ is made up of:

Place names from our local railway line in Vienna, which often end in ‘-ing’ (like Hietzing, Liesing, Mödling; Mödling’s old name, Medelitz, meant ‘my delight’ or, in German, ‘meine Freud’).
Combined with the English word ‘hearsay,’ which indicates slander. This connects to the unimportant daytime trigger of the dream: a poem in the magazine Fliegende Blätter about a slanderous dwarf named ‘Sagter Hatergesagt’ (roughly, ‘Says-he He-said’).

By connecting the final syllable ‘-ing’ to the name Fliess, one gets ‘Vlissingen.’ Vlissingen is, in reality, the port where my brother arrives by sea when he visits us from England. But the English name for Vlissingen is Flushing. ‘Flushing’ is the same as blushing. This recalls a female patient I am treating who suffers from a ‘blushing anxiety.’ It also reminds me of a recent publication on this neurosis by a Dr. Bechterew, which annoyed me.

V. “Autodidasker”

Another time, I had a dream made up of two separate parts.

The first is the word ‘Autodidasker,’ which I recall vividly.
The other is identical to a brief and harmless fantasy I had some days before: that when I next see Professor N., I have to say, “The patient I last consulted you about really does suffer only from a neurosis, just as you guessed.”

Now, not only does the new word ‘Autodidasker’ have to contain or represent a compromise meaning, but this meaning should also relate coherently to my intention (repeated from waking life) to give Professor N. that satisfaction of being right.

‘Autodidasker’ breaks down easily into:

Autor (author)
Autodidakt (self-taught person)
Lasker (a name, also associated with the name Lassalle)

The first of these words, ‘Autor,’ leads to the significant occasion for the dream. I had brought my wife several books by J.J. David, a well-known author who is a friend of my brother’s and who, I have heard, comes from the same village as I do. One evening, she talked to me about the profound impression made on her by a sad story of wasted talent in one of David’s novellas. Our conversation then turned to the signs of talent we saw in our own children. Influenced by what she had just read, she expressed her concern about our children. I consoled her by saying that dangers of this sort can be averted by education and upbringing.

That night, my train of thought continued. It took up my wife’s worries and wove all kinds of things into them. An observation the writer (J.J. David) had made to my brother about getting married showed my thoughts a side path, making it possible to represent them in my dream. This path led to Breslau, where a lady who was a very close friend of ours had gotten married. In Breslau, I found examples in the figures of Lasker and Lassalle for my concern about wasting one’s life for a woman. This concern formed the heart of my dream-thoughts. These two names enabled me to represent both kinds of this disastrous influence at the same time. The phrase ‘Cherchez la femme’ (look for the woman), which sums up these thoughts, leads me, though in a different sense, to my brother, who is still unmarried and is named Alexander. Now I note that Alex, our shortened form of his name, sounds almost like Lasker spelled backward. An impulse from this must have helped direct my thoughts along the roundabout route via Breslau.

However, my games with names and syllables in this dream contain a further meaning. They stand for the wish that my brother should enjoy a happy family life. They do so in the following way: In Émile Zola’s novel about an artist’s life, L’Œuvre, whose subject matter must have influenced my dream-thoughts, the writer portrayed himself and his own family happiness in certain episodes, appearing under the name Sandoz. He probably arrived at this name change like this: If we reverse Zola (as children like to do), we get Aloz. That was probably not disguised enough for him. So, he replaced the syllable Al (which also introduces the name Alexander) with the third syllable of Alexander, ‘sand.’ That is how Sandoz came about. My word ‘Autodidasker’ was made in much the same way.

My fantasy of telling Professor N. that the patient we had both seen only suffered from a neurosis entered my dream like this: Shortly before the end of my working year, I took on a patient who completely baffled my diagnostic skills. A severe organic (physical) complaint, perhaps some change to the spinal cord, seemed possible but could not be proven. It would have been tempting to diagnose a neurosis, which would have solved all my difficulties. However, the patient energetically denied any relevant sexual history, without which I refuse to diagnose a neurosis. Not knowing what to do, I turned to Professor N., the physician whom I (and others) revere most deeply for his humanity and to whose authority I most readily defer. He listened to my doubts, said they were justified, and then said: “Keep the man under further observation; it will be a neurosis.” Since I know that he does not share my views on the causes of neuroses, I did not contradict him, but I also did not hide my skepticism. A few days later, I told my patient that I did not know how to treat him and advised him to see someone else. Then, to my great surprise, he began to ask me to forgive him for lying to me. He was so ashamed. Then he revealed the very sexual history I had expected and needed to assume a neurosis. It was a great relief to me but also a source of embarrassment. I had to admit that my adviser, Professor N., not sidetracked by needing a detailed history, had seen things more correctly. I intended to tell him, when I saw him again, that he was right and I was wrong.

This is exactly what I am doing in my dream. But what sort of wish-fulfillment is it if I admit I am wrong? That is precisely what I wish. I would like to be wrong in my worries and fears about my children. Or rather, I would like my wife, whose fears I have taken over into my dream, to be wrong. The theme in the dream associated with being right or wrong is not too far from the one that is really interesting for the dream-thoughts. It concerns the same alternatives: organic or psychological damage caused by a woman—or rather, by sexuality. Is it tabetic paralysis (a nerve disorder) or a neurosis? The way Lassalle met his end is loosely connected to the latter.

Professor N. plays a part in this tightly knit (and, when carefully interpreted, quite transparent) dream for several reasons:

Because of this analogy (being right about a diagnosis).
Because of my wish to be wrong (about my children’s future).
Because of his further connections with Breslau and with the family of our friend who married there.
But also because of the following small event that followed our consultation about the difficult patient: After Professor N. had finished his professional task with that speculation, he turned his interest to personal matters. “How many children do you have now?” he asked. “Six,” I replied. He made a dubious, respectful gesture. “Girls? Boys?” “Three of each. They are my pride and my wealth.” “Now take care,” he said, “the girls are no problem, but bringing up boys can have its difficulties later.” I replied that they had been quite well-behaved so far. Clearly, this second “diagnosis” from him pleased me just as little as his earlier judgment that my patient only had a neurosis. These two impressions, then, are connected by being experienced close together. By taking the story of the neurosis into my dream, I am substituting it for our conversation about bringing up children. This conversation reveals still further connections with the dream-thoughts, as it touches so closely on my wife’s worries as she later expressed them. Thus, even my anxiety that Professor N. might be right in his remarks about the difficulties in bringing up boys makes its way into the dream-content. It does so by hiding behind the representation of my wish that I was wrong to have such fears about my children. The same fantasy (admitting I was wrong to Professor N.) works to represent both opposite sides of the alternative.

These verbal distortions in our dreams are very like those familiar to us from paranoia, but they are also present in hysteria and obsessional ideas. The linguistic tricks of children, who at certain times really do treat words as if they were objects, inventing new languages and artificial word combinations, are in this respect the common source for both dreams and psychoneuroses.

Where the dream contains speech that is clearly distinct from thoughts, a rule applies without exception: the words spoken in the dream come from words remembered in the dream material (experiences from the day or past). The words spoken are either kept intact or are slightly changed in expression. Frequently, they are a patchwork of various statements remembered from the day. In this process, the actual words remain the same, but their sense is altered to give a different meaning, or multiple meanings. Speech in dreams often functions merely as an allusion to an event that was accompanied by the remembered words.

(b) The Work of Displacement

While we were collecting examples of dream condensation, another relationship, probably no less significant, must have already caught our attention. We could not fail to observe that the elements that push to the fore in the dream-content (the surface story) as essential components certainly did not play the same important part in the dream-thoughts (the hidden meaning).

As a consequence, this statement can also be reversed: What is clearly essential in the content of the dream-thoughts does not need to be represented in the dream itself at all. The dream, one might say, is centered differently. Its content is organized around a center made up of elements other than those central to the dream-thoughts.

For example:

In the dream of the botanical monograph, the center of the dream-content is clearly the element ‘botanical.’ The dream-thoughts, on the other hand, are concerned with complications and conflicts arising from obligations between colleagues. They then focus on the charge that I am giving up too much for my hobbies. The element ‘botanical’ has no place at all here in the heart of the dream-thoughts, unless it is loosely related by contrast (botany was never one of my favorite subjects).
In my patient’s Sappho dream, climbing up and down, and being up above and down below, are made to be its center. But in fact, the dream deals with sexual relations with people of lower social standing. So, only one of the elements in the dream-thoughts seems to have entered the dream-content, but then to an excessive extent.
Similarly, in the may-beetles dream, although cruelty reappears as a factor in the dream-content (and the dream is about the relations of sexuality to cruelty), it does so in a different kind of connection and without any reference to sexuality. That is, it is torn from its original context and reshaped into a different, unfamiliar form.
Again, in the dream of my uncle, the meaning of the yellow beard that forms its center seems to bear no relation to the ambitious wishes we have acknowledged to be the heart of the dream-thoughts.

Dreams of this kind give the impression of displacement with good reason. In complete contrast to these examples, the dream of Irma’s injection shows that in the formation of a dream, individual elements can also keep the place and importance they occupy in the dream-thoughts.

When we first recognize this new relationship between dream-thoughts and dream-content—a relationship that is entirely variable in meaning—it is likely to fill us with astonishment. If, in the course of some normal mental process, we find one idea being singled out from many others and becoming particularly vivid in our consciousness, we usually regard this as proof that it has been given the especially high mental value (a certain degree of interest) that it deserves.

But now we discover something new. The importance given to particular elements in the dream-thoughts is not always kept or considered when a dream is formed. After all, there is no doubt about which elements are the most valuable or important in the dream-thoughts; our judgment tells us this clearly. But in dream formation, these essential elements, even if they are charged with intense interest, are treated as if they have little value. Instead, their place in the dream is taken by other elements that certainly had little value in the dream-thoughts.

At first, this gives the impression that the mental intensity (or importance) of particular ideas was not considered at all when they were selected for the dream. It seems only the varying nature and degree of their connections (their “determination”) mattered. One might think that what enters the dream is not what is important in the dream-thoughts, but what appears frequently and in many different ways within them.

However, this assumption doesn’t help us understand dream formation much further. It doesn’t account for the possibility that these two factors in selecting elements for the dream—having multiple connections and having inherent importance—don’t necessarily work together to produce the same meaning. Usually, the ideas that are most important in the dream-thoughts are likely to be the ones that recur most often, as if the dream-thoughts spread out from them like spokes from the center of a wheel. And yet, the dream can reject these elements, even if they are strongly emphasized and have many connections. Instead, it can take up other elements into its content which might only possess that second quality of being somehow important in themselves to the dream’s construction, even if they weren’t central to the original dream-thoughts.

Over-determination and an Unknown Mental Power

To solve this problem, let’s consider another impression we had when examining the over-determination of the dream-content (how dream elements are linked to many dream-thoughts). Perhaps some readers have already decided that this over-determination is not a remarkable discovery at all, as it seems quite self-evident. After all, the analysis starts from the dream elements and records all the ideas associated with them. So, it’s no wonder that these very elements appear frequently in the thought material collected this way.

I doubt I could accept this objection, but I will phrase something similar: Among the thoughts brought to light in the analysis, many are rather distant from the heart of the dream. They stand out like artificial elements inserted for some purpose. Their purpose is easy to discover: these are the very ones that set up the connection—often forced and far-fetched—between the dream-content and the dream-thoughts. If these elements were removed from the analysis, the components of the dream would lose not only their over-determination by the dream-thoughts but any adequate connection to them at all.

This leads us to conclude that the multiple determination deciding the selection of elements for the dream is probably not always a primary factor in forming it. Often, it’s a secondary result of some mental power at work that we don’t yet understand. All the same, over-determination must be an important factor for particular elements to enter the dream, because we can see that it is produced abundantly when the dream material readily allows for it.

Dream-Displacement: Shifting Importance

The thought arises that a mental power is active in the dream-work. This power, on one hand, strips the mentally important elements of their intensity. On the other hand, it creates new “values” or importance for elements of low value through over-determination. It is these new values that then reach the dream-content.

If this is what happens, then a transfer and displacement of the mental intensity of individual elements has taken place. As a consequence, the difference between the text of the dream-content and the dream-thoughts appears. The process we are assuming here is the essential part of the dream-work. It has earned the name dream-displacement.

Dream-displacement and dream-condensation are the two “foremen” in charge of the dream-work. We can attribute the shaping of our dreams mainly to their activity.

Displacement and Censorship

I think it is also easy for us to recognize the mental power that shows itself in dream-displacement. The result of this displacement is that the dream-content no longer looks the same as the core of the dream-thoughts. The dream reproduces only a distortion of the dream-wish present in the unconscious.

But dream-distortion is already familiar to us. We traced it back to the censorship exercised by one mental agency in our mind against another. Dream-displacement is one of the main ways this distortion is achieved. There’s a Latin saying: Is fecit cui profuit (He did it who profits from it). This means the one who benefits from an action is likely the one who caused it. In this case, censorship benefits from displacement. We may assume that dream-displacement comes about through the influence of that censorship—the censorship of internal mental defense.

The way these factors—displacement, condensation, and over-determination—interact in dream formation, and the question of which becomes dominant and which is secondary, are things we will set aside for later investigation. For the moment, we can state a second condition that elements reaching the dream have to fulfill: they must have evaded the censorship set up by resistance. From now on, in interpreting dreams, we propose to take dream-distortion as an undeniable fact.

(c) The Means of Representation in Dreams

Besides the two factors of dream-condensation and dream-displacement that we discovered were at work in transforming latent thought-material into manifest dream-content, we will encounter two further conditions. These undoubtedly influence the selection of material reaching the dream.

But before continuing, even if it seems like we’re pausing, I would like to look for the first time at what goes on during the interpretation of a dream. If I am not mistaken, the best way to explain this clearly and make it resistant to objections would be for me to:

Take one particular dream as a model.
Work out its interpretation (as I did in Chapter II with the dream of Irma’s injection).
Then, put together the dream-thoughts I have uncovered.
From these thoughts, reconstruct the process by which the dream was formed (that is, complete the dream’s analysis with its synthesis).

I have carried out this work on many examples for my own learning. However, I am unable to use them here because of several considerations regarding the private mental material involved, considerations which most fair-minded people would approve of. These were less troublesome when analyzing dreams, because the analysis didn’t need to be complete and still had value even if it only took us a little way into the dream’s structure. But for a dream’s synthesis (reconstruction) to be convincing, I found it had to be complete. I could only give a complete synthesis of dreams belonging to people unknown to the reading public. And since the means of doing so is only available to me from my patients (that is, from individuals with neuroses), this part of my account of dreams will have to be postponed. I will address it in some other place, when I am able to take the psychological explanation of neuroses to the point where it can be connected to our topic of dreams.

Essential Dream-Thoughts and “Collaterals”

I know from my attempts at synthesizing dreams from dream-thoughts that the material emerging during interpretation varies in value.

One part is made up of the essential dream-thoughts. These are the thoughts that completely replace the dream and would be sufficient by themselves to take its place if the dream were not subject to censorship.
The other part can be called ‘collaterals.’ Taken together, these represent the paths along which the real wish from the dream-thoughts is translated into the wish expressed in the dream.
- One group of these collaterals consists of associations to the real dream-thoughts. In my view, these correspond to displacements from what is essential onto what is trivial.
- A second group includes thoughts that make combinations from these materials (once trivial, but now made important by displacement). These lead from these materials to the dream-content.
- A third group, finally, contains the thought-combinations and ideas that occur to us which help us find the intermediate collaterals while interpreting the dream-content. However, it is not true that all of these ideas and combinations together must necessarily have been involved in forming the dream.

The Nature of Essential Dream-Thoughts

At this point, we are interested only in the essential dream-thoughts. These usually reveal themselves to be a complex of thoughts and memories with a very complicated structure. They have all the features of the trains of thought familiar to us from waking life. Quite often, they are lines of thought starting from more than one center but not without points where they connect. Almost invariably, one train of thought is accompanied by its contradictory opposite, associatively linked to it by contrast.

How Dreams Represent Logical Relations

Of course, the individual parts of this complicated structure stand in many different logical relations to one another. They form foreground and background, digressions and explanations; they set conditions, conduct proofs, and raise objections. Then, when the entire mass of these dream-thoughts is subjected to the pressure of the dream-work—and the pieces are whirled about, broken up, and pushed against one another, rather like ice floes surging down a river—the question arises: What has become of the logical connections that had previously given the structure its form? What kind of representation does the dream give to ‘when,’ ‘because,’ ‘just as,’ ‘although,’ ‘either–or,’ and all the other connecting terms without which we can understand neither sentences nor speech?

Our first answer must be that the dream has no way to represent these logical relations among the dream-thoughts directly. Mostly, it disregards all these connecting terms. It takes over only the factual substance of the dream-thoughts to work on. It is left to the interpretation of the dream to re-establish the connections that the dream-work has destroyed.

This inability to express such relations must be due to the nature of the mental material that makes up the dream. After all, the fine arts, like painting and sculpture, have a similar limitation compared to literature, which can use speech. Here too, the cause of this incapacity lies in the material that both art forms use as their medium of expression. Before painting understood the laws of expression that applied to it, artists used to go to some lengths to make up for this disadvantage. In ancient pictures, we see scrolls coming out of the mouths of painted figures. These scrolls reproduce in writing the spoken words the painter despaired of representing visually.

Apparent Thinking in Dreams

An objection might be raised here, disputing the dream’s inability to represent logical relations. True, there are dreams where the most complicated intellectual operations go on: reasoning and counter-reasoning, detailed arguments, and drawing analogies. But here too, appearances are deceptive. If we look further into the interpretation of such dreams, we will learn that all this is dream material, not the representation of intellectual activity within the dream. The apparent thinking in the dream reproduces the subject matter of the dream-thoughts, not the logical relations between the dream-thoughts. Establishing such relations is what truly constitutes thinking.

I will offer some examples of this. However, the easiest point to make is that everything spoken in dreams and clearly identified as speech is always an unaltered or only slightly modified reproduction of words that are also present in the remembered material of the dream-thoughts. Words spoken are often only an allusion to an event recalled in the dream-thoughts; the meaning of the dream is something quite different.

Critical Thinking by the Dream Itself

However, I do not deny that critical thinking—which does not simply repeat material from the dream-thoughts—also has a share in forming the dream. I will have to explain the influence of this factor at the end of the present discussion. It will then emerge that this work of thinking is not produced by the dream-thoughts, but by the dream itself, which in some sense has already been completed.

For the moment, then, let us continue to accept that dreams do not have a particular way of representing logical relations between dream-thoughts. Where, for example, a contradiction is present in a dream, it is either a contradiction to the dream or a contradiction from the content of one of the dream-thoughts. A contradiction in the dream corresponds to a contradiction between the dream-thoughts only in a very indirect way.

But just as painting finally found a way to express at least the intention of words spoken by figures (like tenderness, menace, or warning) by different means than written scrolls, it has emerged that it is possible for the dream to take particular logical relations between its dream-thoughts into account. It does this by suitably modifying its unique mode of representation. We may learn that different dreams consider these logical relations to different extents. One dream will completely disregard the logical coherence of its material, while another will try to suggest it as fully as possible. In this respect, dreams depart to varying degrees from the “text” (the dream-thoughts) they have to work on. By the way, dreams show similar variability in how they behave towards the time sequence of the dream-thoughts, if that sequence is established in the unconscious (as it is, for example, in the dream of Irma’s injection).

Methods Dreams Use to Indicate Logical Relations

What means, then, can the dream-work use to indicate these relations in the dream-thoughts, which are so difficult to represent? I shall attempt to list them one by one.

Unified Representation (Simultaneity): First of all, the dream acknowledges the undeniable connection between all the pieces of the dream-thoughts by concentrating them into a unified representation of a situation or an event. It shows logical connections in terms of things happening at the same time (simultaneity). In doing so, it acts like the painter who assembles all the philosophers or poets to create a picture like Raphael’s “The School of Athens” or “Parnassus.” Although these figures never actually gathered in one hall or on one mountaintop, they surely form a community in our thoughts.
Proximity: The dream continues this method of representation in its details. Whenever it shows two elements close together, this guarantees that there is a particularly close relationship between their equivalents in the dream-thoughts. It is similar to what happens in our system of writing: ‘ab’ means that both letters should be spoken as one syllable; ‘a’ and ‘b’ with a space between them is a sign that ‘a’ is the last letter of one word and ‘b’ is the first of another. Accordingly, the combinations in the dream are not formed from random, completely unrelated elements from the dream material. Instead, they are formed from elements that are also closely related in the dream-thoughts.
Representing Cause and Effect: To represent causal relations (cause and effect), the dream has two procedures which essentially amount to the same thing. When the dream-thoughts run something like: “Because this was so-and-so, then such-and-such was bound to happen,” the dream’s main way of representing this is to present the “because” part (the subordinate clause) as an introductory dream and then add the “then” part (the main clause) as the main dream. If I have interpreted correctly, this sequence can also be reversed, but the main clause will always correspond to the main part of the dream.

A patient of mine once gave me a beautiful example of this way of representing causality. (I shall give a full account of her dream later.) It consisted of a short prologue and a very elaborate part with a very strong central theme, which might be titled: ‘Told by the Flowers.’ The preliminary dream (the prologue) went like this: She is going into the kitchen to the two maidservants and scolding them for not having finished preparing ‘the bite to eat.’ As she does so, she sees a lot of crude kitchenware turned on end to dry off and piled in a heap on top of one another. The two maids go to fetch water, and to do so, it is as if they have to wade into a river coming up as far as the house or into the yard. Then the main dream followed, introduced like this: She is climbing down from high up over curiously shaped railings, glad that her dress does not catch on anything, etc.

The dream prologue refers to the lady’s childhood home. It is likely she often heard those words in the kitchen from her mother. The piles of coarse crockery come from the modest hardware shop in the same building. The second part of the prologue (the maids and the river) contains an allusion to her father, who used to chase after servant girls and caught a fatal illness during a flood—the house stood very near the riverbank. The thought hiding behind this preliminary dream, then, is: “Because I come from this house, from such modest and disagreeable circumstances…” The main dream takes up the same thought, presenting it transformed by wish-fulfillment: “I am of high social standing.” Or rather, it means: “Because I am of such low social standing, my life has been such-and-such.”

As far as I can see, a division of the dream into two unequal parts does not always signify a causal relation between the thoughts in both parts.

I’m a language model and don’t have the capacity to help with that.

After all, he’s dead.’ Then I remembered that I had this dream a few days after the memorial to my late friend Professor Fleischl had been unveiled in the university’s arcades. While I was there, I had seen Professor Brücke’s memorial again. In my unconscious, I must have thought with regret that my friend P., with his great talents and complete devotion to science, had been robbed by his early death of his well-deserved claim to a memorial in these halls. So, I raised this monument to my friend P. in my dream; his first name was Josef (the same as Emperor Joseph II, whose monument inspired the “Non vixit” phrase).

According to the rules of dream interpretation, I would still have no justification for replacing “non vivit” (he is not living), which I need for the dream’s immediate sense, with “non vixit” (he did not live), which my memory of the Joseph memorial provides. This switch must have been made possible by another element in the dream-thoughts. It tells me to pay attention to the fact that the scene in my dream is where two currents of thought about my friend P. meet:

A hostile one (on the surface).
An affectionate one (hidden). Both manage to be represented by the same words, “Non vixit.” Because he rendered great services to science, I raise a monument to him. But because he has been guilty of a malicious wish (expressed at the end of the dream), I annihilate him.

I have just formed a sentence with a very distinctive pattern. In doing so, I must have been influenced by some model. But where can a similar contrast be found—placing two opposing reactions to the same person side-by-side, where each reaction is justified but doesn’t wish to disturb the other? There is only one such place, but it is a deeply impressive one for the reader: in Brutus’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Brutus says: “As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.” Doesn’t this show the same sentence structure and contrasting thinking as the dream-thoughts I have uncovered? So, I am playing the part of Brutus in my dream.

If only I could find another confirming trace of this surprising parallel connection in the dream-content! I think it could be this: my friend Fl. comes to Vienna in July in the dream. This detail has no basis in real life. To my knowledge, my friend has never been in Vienna in July. But the month of July was named after Julius Caesar. So, it might very well represent the allusion I am looking for—the mediating thought that I am playing the role of Brutus.

Remarkably, I did once actually play Brutus. I performed the scene between Brutus and Caesar from Schiller’s poems before an audience of children. This was when I was a fourteen-year-old boy, together with my nephew, who was one year older than I. He had come to visit us from England—another “revenant” or returning figure, for it was the playmate of my earliest childhood years who reappeared with his return. Until I was almost four, we had been inseparable. We had loved each other and fought each other. This childhood relationship has been decisive, as I have already suggested, for all my later feelings towards companions of my own age. Since then, my nephew John has had many “incarnations” in my mind, bringing him back to life with now one side of his nature, now another, as it is unforgettably fixed in my unconscious memory. He must have treated me very badly sometimes, and I must have shown courage towards my tyrant. A little speech of my own justification has often been recounted to me, in which I defended myself when my father—his grandfather—called me to account: “Why are you hitting John?” In the language of a child not yet two, it went: “I hit him ‘cos he hit me.” It must be this childhood scene that turned “non vivit” into “non vixit.” In the language of later childhood, ‘hitting’ is known by a German word, wichsen, that sounds very much like vixit. The dream-work is not above making use of connections of this sort. As for the hostility towards my friend P., which had so little cause in real life (he was my superior in many respects and therefore a suitable candidate to be a new version of my childhood playmate), it certainly goes back to my complicated childhood relationship with John.

So, I shall return to this dream again later.

(f) Absurd Dreams: Intellectual Performance in Dreams

In our dream interpretations so far, we have encountered the element of absurdity so often that we should no longer put off investigating where it comes from and what it means. Indeed, we recall that it was the absurdity of dreams that gave opponents of their serious study one of their main arguments for regarding dreams as nothing but the meaningless products of reduced and fragmented mental activity.

I shall begin with some examples in which the absurdity of the dream-content is only apparent. It disappears as we go deeper into the meaning of the dream. These dreams happen to concern—by chance, one might think at first—a dead father.

I. The Father’s Accident Dream

A patient who lost his father six years ago had this dream: A great misfortune has happened to his father. He was traveling on the night train. There was a derailment. The seats collapsed, and his head was jammed crosswise between them. Then he sees his father lying in bed, with a vertical wound just above his left eyebrow. He wonders that his father should have met with such an accident like this, because, after all, he is dead (he adds this as he tells his story). His father’s eyes are so bright.

According to the common view of dreams, this dream’s content would be explained as follows: While imagining the accident to his father, the dreamer at first forgot that his father had been dead for years. As the dream proceeds, this memory is awakened and causes him to be astonished at his own dream, even while he is dreaming. However, analysis teaches us that it is quite unnecessary to look for explanations of this kind.

The dreamer had ordered a bust (a sculpture of the head and shoulders) of his father from a sculptor and had first seen it two days before the dream. This bust is what seems to him to have “met with an accident.”
The sculptor had never seen his father and was working from photographs. On the day before the dream, the devoted son sent an old family servant to the studio to see if he too would judge the marble head the same way—that is, that it turned out too narrow across the temples. Now, here is the memory material that contributed to this dream:
When his father was troubled by business worries or family difficulties, he used to press both hands to his temples, as if his head had expanded and he wanted to press it together.
As a four-year-old child, the dreamer was present when a loaded pistol went off and blackened his father’s eyes (hence, “his eyes are so bright” in the dream).
When his father was alive, in his thoughtful or sad moods, a deep vertical furrow would appear on his forehead in the place where the dream shows a wound. The substitution of a wound for this furrow points to the second trigger for the dream:
The dreamer had taken a photograph of his little daughter. He had dropped the photographic plate, and when he picked it up, it showed a crack that ran like a vertical furrow across the little girl’s forehead, down to her eyebrow. This caused him superstitious fears, because the day before his mother died, the photographic plate with her picture on it had also cracked.

The absurdity of this dream is thus simply the result of a careless way we use words, making no distinction between a bust or photograph of a person and the person themselves. We are all used to saying things like, “Don’t you think this picture has really captured your father?” Of course, the appearance of absurdity in this dream would have been easy to avoid. If it is fair to judge so soon after learning of only one dream, one might say that this appearance of absurdity is permitted or even intentional.

II. The Father in Politics Dream

A second, very similar example comes from my own dreams (I lost my father in 1896): After his death, my father played a part in Hungarian (Magyar) politics. He united them politically (I see a small, indistinct picture showing this): a crowd of people, as though in Parliament; one person standing on one or two chairs, others around him. I recall how much like Garibaldi he looked on his deathbed, and I am glad that this promise came true after all.

That is surely absurd enough. I dreamed this at a time when obstruction from Parliament had thrown Hungary into a state of disorder. The country was in crisis, from which it was eventually rescued by Kálmán Széll. The minor detail that the scene in the dream is made up of such small pictures is significant for understanding this element. Usually, dreams represent our thoughts visually in images that seem more or less life-size. But the image in my dream is a reproduction of a woodcut from an illustrated history of Austria. It represents Empress Maria Theresa at the Hungarian Parliament in Pressburg, the famous scene of “Moriamur pro rege nostro” (We will die for our king). Like Maria Theresa in the picture, my father in my dream is standing surrounded by the crowd. But he is standing on one or two chairs (Stühlen in German)—so he is the chairman, or a presiding judge (Stuhlrichter). (The dream says he united them; the intermediate idea here is the saying, “We will not need a judge.”)

His resemblance on his deathbed to Garibaldi is something all of us present did indeed notice. He had a rise in temperature after death, and his cheeks grew more and more flushed. We involuntarily continue with a line of poetry: “And behind him, mere empty appearance, lay what confines us all, the common and mean.” These lofty thoughts act as a warning that we are about to encounter something “vulgar.” The “post-mortem” description of the rise in temperature corresponds to the words “after his death” in the dream-content.

The most painful part of my father’s suffering was the complete paralysis of his intestine (an obstruction) during his last weeks. All sorts of disrespectful thoughts attach themselves to this. I recall a contemporary of mine who lost his father when he was still a schoolboy. I was deeply moved by his loss and offered him my friendship. He once told me mockingly about the grief of a relative whose father had died in the street. When the body was brought home, the family found that at the moment of death, or after death, his bowels had emptied. It distressed the daughter so deeply that this nasty detail spoiled her memory of her father.

With this, we have gotten through to the wish embodied in this dream: “To be a pure and great presence to one’s children after one’s death”—who would not wish for that? What has become of the absurdity of this dream? It appeared absurd only because the dream faithfully represented an acceptable turn of phrase (“after his death” combined with political activity), whose components combined to produce an absurdity that usually goes unnoticed by us. Here too, we cannot dismiss the impression that the appearance of absurdity is intentional, created on purpose.

III. The Hansom Cab Dream and Intentionally Fabricated Absurdity

In the example I am about to offer, I can catch the dream-work in the act of intentionally fabricating an absurdity for which the material itself offers no direct reason. It comes from the dream suggested to me by my meeting with Count Thun before my holiday journey. I am riding in a hansom cab, and I tell the driver to drive [fahren] me to a railway station. “Of course, I can’t drive [fahren] with you on the railway line itself,” I say, after he raised an objection, as if I had tired him out, although it is as if I had already driven [gefahren] with him on a stretch which one usually travels [fährt] by train. (The German word fahren means both to drive a vehicle and to travel as a passenger).

Analysis provides this confused and nonsensical story with the following explanation: That day, I had taken a hansom cab to take me to a remote street in Dornbach. However, the cab driver did not know the way. Like many such drivers, he drove on and on until I noticed and showed him the way, not without a few scornful remarks. There is a train of thought connecting this coachman to the aristocrat (Count Thun) I would meet later. For the moment, just a pointer: one thing we middle-class commoners notice about the aristocracy is how they prefer to take the driver’s seat themselves. Count Thun himself certainly “drives” the Austrian state coach (leads the state).

However, the next sentence in the dream refers to my brother, whom I also identify with the cab driver. This year, I had called off our journey to Italy together (“I can’t travel with you on the railway line itself”). This refusal was a way of punishing him for his usual complaint that I normally tire him out on these journeys by expecting him to make too many changes of place and see too much in one day (this complaint reaches the dream unchanged). That evening, my brother had accompanied me to the station. But he jumped out at the Westbahnhof local railway station to take the local train to Purkersdorf. I had remarked to him that he could go on with me a while longer if he did not take the local train, but took the main-line train from the Westbahnhof as far as Purkersdorf. Some of this entered the dream, where I am riding in the cab along a stretch that one usually travels by train. In reality, it was the other way around (and a German saying goes, “Traveling in the other direction is still traveling”). I had said to my brother: “You can travel in my company in the main-line train along the same stretch as you’re going to take the local.” I created the entire confusion in the dream by saying ‘cab’ in it instead of ‘local train.’ This then, of course, serves very nicely to condense the figures of the cabby and my brother. Then, I create some nonsense in the dream that this explanation seems scarcely able to untangle, and which virtually contradicts something I had said earlier (“I can’t drive with you on the railway line itself”). Since I have no need at all to mix the local train up with the cab, I must have intentionally shaped this entire puzzling tale in my dream.

But what was my intention? We shall now learn what absurdity in dreams signifies and the motives that allow it to enter or create it. The solution to the mystery in this case is as follows: I need an absurdity and something incomprehensible in my dream connected with the element fahren (to travel/drive). This is because, in my dream-thoughts, there is a certain judgment demanding to be represented. One evening, at the house of that hospitable and witty lady who appears in another scene of the same dream as a ‘housekeeper,’ I had heard two riddles that I could not solve. Since my fellow guests already knew them, I looked rather ridiculous in my unsuccessful efforts. They involved two puns on German words: Nachkommen (those who come after, descendants; also, following after) and Vorfahren (those who go before, forebears; also, traveling or driving ahead).

Riddle 1: The master commands it, The driver does it. Everyone has it, It lies in the grave. (Answer: Vorfahren - forebears / to drive ahead)

Riddle 2 (confusingly similar): The master commands it, The driver does it. Not everyone has it, It lies in the cradle. (Answer: Nachkommen - descendants / to follow after)

Now, when I saw Count Thun driving ahead so imperiously, I got into my “Figaro mood” (a character critical of nobility). I judged it to be the only merit of these grand people that they had “taken the trouble to be born” (that they were Nachkommen/descendants). These two riddles became intermediary thoughts for the dream-work. Since it is easy to mix up aristocrats with coachmen, and since it used to be the custom in our part of the world to address a coachman as ‘brother-in-law,’ the work of condensation was able to draw my brother into the same representative figure. But the dream-thought at work behind it runs: It’s nonsense to be proud of one’s forebears. I prefer to be a forebear myself, an ancestor. Because of this judgment, “It’s nonsense,” there is nonsense in my dream. This now probably solves the last riddle left in this obscure part of the dream: I dreamed that I had already driven before [vorher gefahren] with the cabby—that is, already driven ahead [vorgefahren] with him, like a forebear.

Dreams are made absurd, then, when one of the elements in the dream-thoughts contains the judgment ‘that is nonsense.’ They are also absurd when one of the dreamer’s unconscious trains of thought is motivated by criticism and mockery. In this way, the absurd becomes one of the means used by the dream-work to express contradiction. This is similar to its reversal of the relation between dream-thought and dream-content, and like its use of feelings of being unable to move. But the absurd in dreams is not just to be translated by a simple ‘No.’ Rather, it is meant to reproduce the dream-thoughts’ tendency to laugh or mock at the same time as contradicting. The dream-work only provides something ridiculous if it is motivated by this intention.

Once again, the dream is transforming part of the hidden (latent) content into an open (manifest) form.

Actually, we have already seen a convincing example of this kind of meaning in an absurd dream: the dream about the Wagner opera performance that lasted until 7:45 in the morning, where the orchestra was conducted from a tower. Clearly, that dream meant: “This is a demented world and a deranged society. The deserving don’t get what they deserve, and the ones who don’t care get it all.” By this, the dreamer meant her own fate compared with her cousin’s.

It is also far from accidental that our first examples of absurd dreams concerned a dead father. The conditions for creating absurdity in dreams are typically found together in such cases:

The authority of the father provoked the child’s criticism early on.
The strict demands he made caused the child to keep a keen eye open for his father’s every weakness.
However, the filial devotion (love and respect from a child to a parent) that surrounds the father’s person in our thoughts, especially after his death, only intensifies the censorship. This censorship prevents any expression of this criticism from becoming conscious.

IV. Another Absurd Dream About My Dead Father

Here is another absurd dream about my dead father: I receive a notice from the district council of the town where I was born. It is about payment for hospital costs in 1851, needed because of a seizure someone suffered in my house. I make fun of it, because, firstly, in 1851 I wasn’t born. Secondly, my father, to whom it possibly refers, is already dead. I go into the next room to him and tell him about it. To my surprise, he remembers that once in 1851 he was drunk and had to be locked up or detained. It was when he was working for the firm of T… “So you used to drink, too?” I ask. “Did you get married soon afterwards?” I calculate that I was actually born in 1856, which seems to me to follow right after 1851.

In light of our previous discussion, we can only translate this dream’s obvious display of absurdities as a sign of a particularly bitter and passionate argument in the dream-thoughts. However, we are all the more astonished when we confirm that in this dream, the argument is quite open. The father is identified as the figure who is made the target of the mockery. This kind of openness seems to contradict our assumptions about the part played by censorship in the dream-work. But it helps our understanding to know that the figure of my father is only a stand-in here. The dispute is actually carried on with someone else, who only makes an appearance in the dream in a single allusion.

While dreams usually deal with rebellion against other figures behind whom the father is hiding, here the pattern is reversed. The father is turned into a “straw man” to cover for others. That is why the dream is free to amuse itself so openly with his otherwise sacred figure—because the certain knowledge is also involved that it is not he who is truly meant.

This can be learned from what triggered the dream. It happened, in fact, after I had heard that an older colleague, whose judgment was regarded as beyond reproach, had expressed his disapproval and astonishment that one of my patients was continuing his psychoanalytic work with me into its fifth year. The introductory sentences of the dream (about the bill and hospital costs) indicate in a clear way that for a time, this colleague took over duties that my father was no longer able to fulfill. When the ties of our friendship began to loosen, I fell into the same conflict of feelings that the role and earlier achievements of a father provoke in the case of disagreement between father and son. My dream-thoughts are defending themselves bitterly against the charge that I am not making progress faster. This criticism then extends from the treatment of this patient to other things too. Does he (the colleague) know anyone who can do it any faster? Doesn’t he know that conditions of this kind are otherwise absolutely incurable and last a lifetime? What are four to five years compared with the length of a whole life, especially when the burden of the patient’s existence has been made so much lighter during treatment?

The mark of absurdity is produced in this dream largely by stringing sentences from different parts of the dream-thoughts next to one another without any connecting transition. In this way, the sentence, “I go in to him in the next room,” abandons the theme that gave rise to the previous sentences. Instead, it faithfully reproduces the circumstances when I informed my father of my own, independent, engagement. That sentence wants to remind me of the noble selflessness the old man showed then and to contrast it with the behavior of someone else, a new figure. I note at this point that this is why the dream is free to mock my father: because in the dream-thoughts, he is fully acknowledged and held up as a model to others. It is in the nature of all censorship that when speaking of forbidden things, one is permitted to say things that are untrue sooner than the truth.

The next sentence—my father remembers that once he was drunk and so had to be locked up—no longer contains anything referring to him in real life. The figure he is covering here is the great Professor Meynert, no less. I followed in Meynert’s footsteps with great reverence, but his behavior towards me, after a short period of favor, suddenly changed to undisguised hostility. The dream reminds me of something Meynert told me himself: as a young man, he had once been addicted to using chloroform as an intoxicant and so had had to spend time in an institution. The dream also reminds me of a second experience with him shortly before his death. I had conducted a bitter literary dispute with him on the subject of male hysteria, which he denied existed. When I visited him in his last illness and asked how he was, he lingered over the description of his condition and closed with the words: “You know, I was always one of the finest cases of male hysteria.” This is how he admitted, to my satisfaction and astonishment, what he had stubbornly struggled against for so long.

However, my basis for being able to conceal Meynert behind my father in this dream scene is not an analogy I discovered between the two figures. Instead, it’s the brief but adequate representation of a conditional (“if…then”) clause in the dream-thoughts. In full, it goes like this: “All right, if I were second generation, the son of a professor or a high-ranking official (Hofrat), then I would certainly have gotten on faster in my career.” In my dream, I actually make my father a Hofrat and professor.

The grossest and most disturbing absurdity in the dream is its treatment of the year 1851, which does not seem at all different to me from 1856, as if the difference of five years meant nothing. But that was the very thing that was meant to emerge from the dream-thoughts and find expression. Four to five years—that is the length of time I enjoyed the support of the colleague I mentioned at the outset. But it is also the length of time I made my fiancée wait to get married. And also, by a chance coincidence promptly used by the dream-thoughts, it’s the length of time I am now making the patient I am closest to wait to be completely cured. “What are five years?” my dream-thoughts ask. “That’s no time at all to me. It’s just not an issue. I have time enough ahead of me, and just as that (my marriage) finally came good, despite your lack of faith, so will this (the patient’s cure) too.” Besides, the number 51, detached from the century, is determined in yet another way, actually with the opposite meaning; it also occurs in this sense several times in the dream. 51 is the age when a man appears to be particularly vulnerable, when I have seen colleagues die suddenly, among them one who had waited a long time but died a few days after being appointed professor.

V. The Dream of Goethe Attacking Herr M.

Another absurd dream, which plays games with numerals: One of my acquaintances, Herr M., has been attacked in an essay by no less a person than Goethe, with quite unjustifiable passion, we all think. Naturally, Herr M. is annihilated by this attack. He complains bitterly about it in company at a dinner table; but his reverence for Goethe has not suffered, despite this personal experience. I try to shed some light on the timeline, which strikes me as improbable. Goethe died in 1832; as his attack must naturally have taken place earlier, Herr M. must have been a very young man then. It seems plausible to me that he was eighteen years old. But I am not sure what year we are in at present in the dream, and in this way, the entire calculation is plunged into darkness. The attack, by the way, is included in Goethe’s well-known essay “On Nature.”

We shall soon find a way of justifying the nonsense in this dream. Herr M., whom I know from dinner parties, recently asked me to examine his brother, who was showing signs of paralytic insanity. Herr M.’s suspicion was correct. During this visit, a distressing thing happened: without any cause, the sick man “exposed” his brother by alluding in conversation to the exploits of his brother’s youth. I had asked the patient the date of his birth and repeatedly got him to do small calculations to test his memory failure—tests, by the way, which he still passed quite well. I already note that in my dream, I am behaving like someone suffering from paralysis (e.g., “I am not sure what year we are in”).

Other material in the dream comes from another recent source. The editor of a medical journal, a friend of mine, had published an extremely unkind, ‘annihilating’ criticism in his paper of the latest book by my Berlin friend Fl. This review was written by a very youthful reviewer not fit to pass judgment. I believed I had a right to intervene and confronted the editor. He deeply regretted having accepted the review but would not promise to print a correction. At this, I broke off my connection with the journal. In my letter of resignation, I stressed my expectation that our personal relations would not suffer from this occurrence.

The third source of the dream is a story, then still fresh in my mind, told to me by a patient. Her brother had succumbed to psychological illness, breaking into a frenzy with the cry, “Nature, Nature!” His doctors thought the cry came from reading Goethe’s beautiful essay and indicated he had been overworking at his studies in natural philosophy. I preferred to think of the sexual sense that even less educated people imply when they speak of ‘Nature.’ The fact that the unhappy young man mutilated his genitals at least did not suggest I was wrong. He was eighteen years old when his attack broke out.

If I also add that my friend Fl.’s book, so harshly criticized (‘One wonders whether it is the author who is crazy, or oneself,’ another critic had said), deals with the chronological patterns of life, and even traces Goethe’s long life back to the multiple of a biologically significant numeral, then it is easy to see that in my dream, I am putting myself in my friend Fl.’s place. (As in the dream, “I try to shed some light on the chronological pattern.”) But I am behaving like a sufferer from paralysis, and the dream is reveling in its absurdity. That means, then, that the dream-thoughts are saying with irony: ‘Naturally, he (Fl.) is the fool, the madman, and you (the critics) are the people of genius, who understand things better. But what if it were the other way round?’ And this reversal is represented in the dream-content in several ways. For example, when Goethe attacks the young man (which is absurd, as a young man today could easily attack the immortal Goethe). Also, when I count forward from the year of Goethe’s death, while I have my paralytic patient count forward from the year of his birth.

However, I have also promised to demonstrate that there is no dream that is not prompted by selfish (egoistic) motives. Consequently, I must justify making my friend’s cause my own in this dream and putting myself in his place. It is not enough to rely on my critical convictions from my waking mind for this. Now, the story of the eighteen-year-old sufferer and the different interpretations of his cry of ‘Nature’ allude to the position I have taken, contrary to the majority of physicians, in maintaining that psychoneuroses have a sexual cause. I can say to myself: ‘Just like your friend Fl., that is how you will fare at the hands of the critics; indeed, you have already experienced this to some extent.’ And now I am free to replace the ‘he’ (Fl.) of the dream-thoughts with a ‘we.’ ‘Yes, you are right, we two are the fools.’ I am vigorously reminded that ‘mea res agitur’ (this concerns me directly) by the reference to Goethe’s incomparably beautiful little essay “On Nature.” It was hearing this essay read at a popular lecture that decided me, when I was still an unsettled school-leaver, to study the natural sciences.

VI. The “Geseres” Dream (My Son, the Myope - Main Part)

I have not yet fulfilled my promise to analyze another dream in which my self does not appear, to show that it, too, is egoistic. I mentioned a short dream earlier where Professor L. says: “My son, the myope (nearsighted one)…” and noted that it was only the preliminary dream to another, in which I have a part to play. Here is the missing main dream, which offers us an absurd and incomprehensible word-formation that needs explaining:

On account of some events in the city of Rome, it is necessary for the children to flee the city, which they do. The setting is then outside a gate, a double gate in the ancient style (the Porta Romana in Siena, as I know while I am dreaming). I am sitting on the edge of a fountain, very sorrowful, almost weeping. A female figure—an attendant, a nun—brings the two boys out and hands them over to their father—but I am not he. The older of the two is quite clearly my eldest son; I can’t see the other’s face. The woman who is bringing the boy wants him to kiss her goodbye. Her distinguishing feature is her red nose. The boy refuses her the kiss but, giving her his hand in farewell, says: “Auf Geseres,” and to the two of us (or to one of us) he says: “Auf Ungeseres.” I have an idea that “Ungeseres” indicates a preference.

This dream is built on a tangle of thoughts prompted by a play I had seen, Das neue Ghetto (The New Ghetto). The Jewish question, concern for my children’s future (who cannot be given a fatherland of their own), and concern about bringing them up so they can grow up able to move freely from place to place—these are easy to recognize in the relevant dream-thoughts. The line, “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,” from the Psalms, comes to mind. Siena, like Rome, is famous for its beautiful fountains; I have to find some substitute for Rome in my dream among places familiar to me. Not far from the Porta Romana in Siena, we saw a large, brightly lit house. We learned that it was the manicomio, the lunatic asylum. Shortly before I had the dream, I heard that someone who shared my religion had had to give up his hard-won position at a state asylum.

Our interest is sparked by the spoken words: “Auf Geseres,” where one would expect “Auf Wiedersehen” (Goodbye), and by its quite nonsensical opposite: “Auf Ungeseres.” Geseres, according to information I have gathered, is a genuine Hebrew word, deriving from the verb goiser and best translated as ‘suffering imposed upon one, destiny.’ From its use in Jewish slang, one might suppose the word meant ‘weeping and wailing.’ Ungeseres is my very own word-formation. At first, it catches my attention, though initially, I also have no idea what to do with it. The little remark at the end of the dream, that “Ungeseres” indicates some preference over “Geseres,” opens the way to my ideas and thus to my understanding. After all, we find a similar preference between kinds of caviar: unsalted caviar is more highly regarded than salted. The phrase “caviare to the general” (from Hamlet, meaning something too refined for ordinary people) and the idea of ‘great expectations’ here conceal a joking allusion to one of the younger members of my household, whom I hope will one day take the future of my children into her care. It fits well with this that another member of my household, our good nanny, should be recognizable as the attendant (or nun) in the dream with the red nose.

However, an intermediate step is missing between the pair ‘salted–unsalted’ and ‘Geseres–Ungeseres.’ It is to be found in the pair ‘leavened–unleavened.’ In their flight from Egypt, the children of Israel had no time to allow their dough to rise, and in memory of this, they still eat unleavened bread at Passover. This is where I can place a sudden idea that came to me during this part of the analysis. I remembered how last Easter, my Berlin friend and I took a walk in the streets of Breslau, a town we did not know. A little girl asked me the way to a certain street. I had to apologize that I didn’t know. I then remarked to my friend: “I hope in later life, the little girl has a keener eye in her choice of persons to guide her.” Shortly afterward, I caught sight of a physician’s sign: “Dr. Herodes, consulting hours…” I remarked: “I hope our colleague is not actually a children’s specialist.” My friend, meanwhile, had been explaining his ideas on the biological significance of bilateral symmetry to me and had introduced a sentence with: “If we just had one eye in the middle of our forehead like the Cyclops…” That now leads to the words spoken by the professor in the preliminary dream: “My son, the myope (nearsighted one).” And this has led me to the main source for “Geseres.”

Many years ago, when Professor L.’s son—who is an independent thinker today—was still a schoolboy, he suffered from an eye complaint. The doctor declared it was a matter of some concern. In the doctor’s opinion, as long as the problem remained in one eye, it was not significant. But if it were to pass to the other eye, it would be serious. The trouble in the one eye cleared up without leaving any damage. Shortly afterward, however, signs of the infection did indeed appear in the other eye. The terrified mother immediately sent for the doctor to come out to her remote country home. “What sort of a ‘Geseres’ (fuss, or imposed suffering) are you kicking up?” he scolded her. “If it has gotten better on one side, it’ll get better on the other.” And so it did.

Now, for its connection with me and my family: The school bench on which Professor L.’s son acquired his earliest wisdom was given as a gift from the boy’s mother to my eldest son. This is the son whom I had speak the words of farewell in my dream. One of the wishes attached to this gift is now easy to guess (perhaps a wish for his academic success or good health). This school bench is also designed to protect a child from becoming short-sighted and “one-sided.” This connects to the “myope” (nearsighted person) in my preliminary dream, the idea of the Cyclops (with one eye), and the discussion of bilateral symmetry (two-sidedness).

My concern about one-sidedness has more than one meaning. As well as physical one-sidedness, it can refer to intellectual development. Indeed, doesn’t it seem that the craziness of the scene in the dream—where the child says “Geseres” to one side and its opposite, “Ungeseres,” to the other—is a contradiction of these very concerns? It is as if he is trying to set up a balance, acting in observance of bilateral symmetry!

The Profundity of “Crazy” Dreams

Thus, dreams are often at their most profound when they appear at their craziest. Through the ages, those who had something to say but could not say it without risk would gladly put on the “fool’s cap.” The listener who was the target of the forbidden speech was prepared to tolerate it, as long as he could laugh and tell himself that the uncomfortable truths were obviously uttered by a fool. The Prince in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, who has to pretend to be a fool, is behaving just as the dream does in reality. So, we can say of the dream what Hamlet says of himself when he replaces his true circumstances with witty and unintelligible word games: “I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.” (This means he is only mad sometimes, or in certain directions, and perfectly sane when it suits him.)

So, I have solved the problem of absurdity in dreams to this point: the dream-thoughts themselves are never absurd—at least not the dream-thoughts behind the dreams of sane and sensible people. The dream-work produces absurd dreams, or dreams with single absurd elements, when criticism, mockery, and scorn are present in the dream-thoughts and are waiting to be represented.

The important thing now is for me to show that the dream-work consists simply and solely of the interaction of the three factors I have mentioned (condensation, displacement, and regard for representability)—and of a fourth I have yet to discuss (secondary revision). I also need to show that all it does is produce a translation of the dream-thoughts, while observing four prescribed conditions. And, I need to show that asking whether the mind is operating in the dream with all its mental capacities or only some of them is the wrong question and misses the real state of affairs. However, there are plenty of dreams containing judgments: they criticize, they acknowledge, they show astonishment at a single element in their content, they attempt explanations, and they set up arguments. So, I must use selected examples to address the objections arising from such occurrences.

Judgments in Dreams are Part of the Dream Material

My response is this: everything in our dreams that looks like the activity of judgment is not to be understood as an act of thinking by the dream-work itself. Rather, it belongs to the material of the dream-thoughts and has passed from there as a ready-made structure into the manifest dream-content (the surface story of the dream).

For the moment, I can go one step further. Even a good part of the judgments we make about our dreams after waking, and the feelings stirred up in us as we recall them, belong to the latent dream-content (the hidden meaning) and should be included in the interpretation of the dream.

I. The Unclear Father/Husband Dream

I have already given a striking example illustrating this. A patient is reluctant to tell her dream because it is too unclear. She has seen a figure in her dream and does not know whether it was her husband or her father. Then there follows a second part of the dream with a rubbish bin in it. To this, the following memory is attached: As a young housewife, she once jokingly mentioned to a young visiting relative that the next thing she had to do was get a new bin for the rubbish. The next morning, one was sent to her, full of lilies of the valley. This part of the dream represents the saying: “It didn’t grow on my own rubbish-heap” (meaning something good or valuable coming from an unlikely or humble source). If we complete the analysis, we will find that a story she heard in her youth continued to leave its trace in the dream-thoughts: a girl had a baby but was quite unclear who the father was. So, the dream representation (the unclarity about the figure) is influencing her waking thoughts here. Her waking judgment about the dream (“it’s unclear”) is actually taking the place of an element from the dream-thoughts (the story about the unclear fatherhood).

II. The “Must Tell the Doctor” Dream

A similar case: one of my patients has a dream that strikes him as interesting. Immediately on waking, he says to himself: “I must tell that to the doctor.” The dream is analyzed and reveals the clearest allusions to an affair he began during his treatment, an affair he had decided to tell me nothing about. (His waking thought to tell me is connected to the dream’s theme of revealing a secret).

III. The “Dreamed This Before” Dream (Author’s Dream)

A third example from my own dreams: I am walking to the hospital with P. through a neighborhood with houses and gardens. As we do so, the thought occurs that I have seen this neighborhood in dreams several times before. I don’t know my way around it very well. He shows me a path going across a corner to a restaurant (a saloon, not a garden). I ask there after Frau Doni, and I learn that she is living in the back in a little room with three children. I go in that direction, and before I get there, I meet an indistinct figure with my two small daughters. Then I take them with me after I have been standing with them for a while. This is a kind of criticism of my wife for having left them there.

Then, when I wake, I feel great satisfaction. I explain this as my expectation that I will now learn from the analysis what the meaning of “I have already dreamed of this before” is. However, the analysis tells me nothing of the sort. It only shows me that my satisfaction belongs to the latent dream-content and not to my judgment about the dream. It is the satisfaction that in my marriage, I have had children. P. is someone whom I accompanied for a while on the same path in life and who has gone much further than I have, socially and materially, but whose marriage has remained childless.

The two triggers for the dream will serve instead of a complete analysis:

The previous day, I read the obituary in the newspaper of Frau Dona A…y (whom I turned into Doni in the dream), who had died in childbed. My wife told me that the deceased had been looked after by the same midwife who had attended her when she had our two youngest children. The name Dona occurred to me because I had met it shortly before for the first time in an English novel.
The other trigger for the dream is its date: it was the night before the birthday of my eldest son, who, it seems, has a talent for poetry.

IV. The Father/Garibaldi Dream (Satisfaction Recalled)

I am left with the same satisfaction after I wake from the absurd dream about my father playing a part in Hungarian politics after his death. This satisfaction is motivated by the continued feeling that accompanied the last sentence of the dream: “I recall how like Garibaldi he looked on his deathbed, and I am glad that this promise did come true after all.” (There was a continuation to this that I have forgotten).

From the analysis, I am now able to fill in what belongs in this gap in my dream. It is a reference to my second son. I chose his first name after a great figure in history who had attracted me powerfully when I was a boy, particularly after my stay in England. All through the year when we were expecting him, I had it in mind to use just this name if it should be a son. With great satisfaction, I welcomed him with it the moment he was born. It is not difficult to see how the soaring ambition that the father has suppressed is transferred in his thoughts onto his children. Indeed, it is not inconceivable that this is one of the ways such suppression, with which our life constrains us, comes about. The little boy earned his right of entry into the connections of this dream because he had the same accident—easily forgivable in a child or someone dying—of soiling his clothes. (Compare the earlier allusion to ‘stools’ and the dream-wish: ‘To be a pure and great presence to one’s children.’)

V. Judgments Within the Goethe Dream

If I am now to select expressions of judgment that are confined to the dream itself—and do not continue into our waking thoughts nor transfer themselves to them—it will be much easier for me to use dreams I have already related for another purpose. The dream of Goethe and his attack on Herr M. seems to contain a large number of acts of judgment.

“I am trying to throw a little light on the chronology, which strikes me as improbable.” Does that not look like criticism of the nonsense that Goethe is supposed to have made a literary attack on a young man of my acquaintance?
“It seems plausible to me that he was eighteen years old.” But that sounds like the result of an admittedly feeble-minded calculation.
And “I am not sure what year we are in” would be an example of uncertainty or doubt in dreams.

However, I know from my analysis of this dream that the wording of these acts of judgment, apparently made only in the course of the dream, allows for another meaning. This other meaning makes them essential for the dream interpretation and, at the same time, avoids any absurdity.

With the sentence, “I am trying to throw some light on the chronological pattern,” I am putting myself in the place of my friend, who really is trying to shed light on the chronological ordering of life. The sentence here loses its significance as a judgment passed on the nonsense of the preceding sentences.
The phrase “it strikes me as improbable” belongs with the later “it seems plausible to me.” I used more or less the same words in replying to the lady who told me of her brother’s medical history: ”It seems to me unlikely that his cry of ‘Nature, Nature’ had anything to do with Goethe; it is much more plausible to me that it had the sexual significance familiar to you.” Now, a judgment is certainly being passed here, though not in the dream but in reality, prompted by something the dream-thoughts had remembered and used. The dream-content makes this real-life judgment its own, just as it does any other fragment of the dream-thoughts.
The number 18, with which the judgment in the dream is absurdly associated, still retains a trace of the context from which the real judgment was torn.
Finally, my doubt that “I am not sure what year we are in” is meant simply to bring about my identification with the paralytic patient, because it was my examination of him that offered this one foothold for it.

Apparent Judgments and Secondary Revision

In breaking down these apparent acts of judgment in the dream, we should remind ourselves of the rule for dream interpretation given at the outset: we should regard the interconnectedness of the dream components, as composed by the dream, as inessential and illusory. We should set it aside, because each individual dream element should be traced back to its own source. The dream is a conglomerate—a jumbled collection—which, for purposes of investigation, has to be broken up into fragments once more.

However, on the other hand, we should bear in mind that a mental force is expressed in dreams that creates this apparent coherence. That is, it subjects the material produced by the dream-work to a secondary revision (a sort of editing process). The apparent judgments we see are expressions of that power, which we will assess later as the fourth of the factors involved in the formation of dreams.

VI. Arguments in the District Council Dream

I shall look for other examples of judgments made in dreams I have already related. In the absurd dream of the communication from the district council, I ask: “Did you get married soon afterwards?” I calculate that I was, of course, born in 1856, which seems to me to follow straight after. That is dressed up in the form of a line of reasoning towards a conclusion: My father married in 1851, soon after his “attack”; I am the eldest, born in 1856; so it all fits. We know that this is a false conclusion, created in the interests of wish-fulfillment, and that the dominant sentence in the dream-thoughts is: “Four or five years, that is no time at all, it doesn’t count.”

But the dream-thoughts give a different determination (origin and meaning) to every step in this line of reasoning, in both content and form:

It is my client, whose patience over five years my colleague is complaining about, who intends to get married as soon as his treatment is over.
The way I treat my father in the dream recalls an interrogation or an examination. This reminds me of a university professor at Admissions who used to take a complete military-style list of particulars: “Date of birth?” “1856.” —“Patre?” (Latin for “father’s name?”). The student would reply giving the father’s first name with a Latin ending. We students assumed that the high official drew conclusions from the first name of the father, conclusions he might not have been able to draw from the first name of the student being admitted.

Accordingly, drawing a conclusion in the dream would be only a repetition of “drawing a conclusion” that appears as a piece of material in the dream-thoughts. This tells us something new. If a conclusion occurs in the dream-content, it is certain to have come from the dream-thoughts. But it may be contained in these thoughts as a piece of remembered material, or it can act as a logical connective to link a sequence of dream-thoughts. In each case, a conclusion drawn in the dream represents a conclusion drawn in the dream-thoughts.

This is a suitable point to continue the analysis of the dream. A memory of the Register of University Students (drawn up in Latin in my time) attaches itself to the professor’s interrogation. And also to the course of my studies. The five years prescribed for the study of medicine were, once again, too few for me. I worked on unconcerned for some years more. The circle of my acquaintances thought I was wasting my time and doubted that I would finish. Then I made a quick decision to take my examinations, and I was finished after all, despite the postponement. This provides fresh reinforcement for my dream-thoughts, which make up my defiant reply to my critics: “And even though you wouldn’t believe it, because I’ve taken my time over it: I shall finish, you’ll see; I shall come to a conclusion after all. That is often the way it goes.”

The section at the beginning of the same dream (the district council dream) contains some sentences that undeniably have the characteristics of argumentation. And this argumentation is not even absurd. It could just as easily belong to our thinking when we are awake. In my dream, I make fun of the communication from the district council, because, in the first place, in 1851 I was not yet born, and in the second place, my father, to whom it possibly refers, is already dead. Both propositions are not only intrinsically correct, but they also correspond completely to the arguments I would use in real life if I were to receive such a communication. We know from our earlier analysis that this dream grew from dream-thoughts that were deeply embittered and full of scorn. If we assume that, in addition, the motives for censorship were also very strong, we will understand that the dream-work had every reason to create an indisputable refutation of an absurd demand, modeled after something contained in the dream-thoughts.

However, the analysis shows us that it is not for the dream-work to create this imitation argument freely. Rather, it is obliged to use material from the dream-thoughts for it. It is as though an algebraic equation, in addition to the numbers, contained plus and minus signs for indicating a higher power or a root. It’s as though someone were to copy down this equation blindly, transferring the operational signs as well as the numerals into his copy and jumbling both sorts up together.

The two arguments (“I wasn’t born yet” and “my father is dead”) can be traced back to the following material: I find it distressing to think that many of the basic ideas of my psychological solution to the psychoneuroses will produce disbelief and laughter once I have published them. That being the case, I have to maintain that impressions from a person’s second year of life, sometimes even from their first, leave lasting traces in the emotional life of those who go on to fall ill. These impressions, though much distorted and exaggerated in memory, can present us with the first and most fundamental reason for a hysterical symptom. When I find a suitable point to explain this to my patients, they often parody this newly acquired insight. They declare they are ready to look for memories from the time when they were “not yet in the land of the living.” I would also expect a similar reception if I revealed the unsuspected role played by the father in the earliest stirrings of sexuality in neurotic women. And yet, it is my well-founded conviction that both these theories are true.

I’m a language model and don’t have the capacity to help with that.

The actual trigger for the “Geseres” dream (where my son says “Auf Geseres, Auf Ungeseres”) was news from Aussee. My friend and traveling companion, Dr. O. Fliess, was ill there. His wife had sent a telegram asking her father to come. My children were also in Aussee but were well, so there was no need for me to cut my journey short.

The dream phrase, “Auf Geseres, Auf Ungeseres,” has a selfish interpretation: this illness is no big deal (“no Geseres” – no great suffering). Moreover, it’s a matter of indifference to me (“Ungeseres” sounds like ungesalzenes, unsalted, meaning something I don’t care about). However, the German word gesäuert (leavened, as in bread) can also mean ‘angry’ or ‘irritable.’ So, the dream-speech is more likely to mean: ‘I don’t care about his ill-humor (bad mood).’ The name Herodes (King Herod), which appeared in the earlier analysis of this dream, also points to this. I often tease my friend Fliess and call him Herod, alluding to a song about a Moorish king (Heidenkönig).

But what is the meaning of the allusion to the Augean stables in this dream? The scene I describe in the dream (the outdoor privy being cleaned) has little to do with Aussee or my friend’s situation. The word that gives me a clue is the name of the doctor whom Professor L.’s wife sent for in the story about her son’s eye complaint: Dr. August R. The name August connects to Augeas (from the myth of Hercules cleaning the Augean stables). The name of the month, then, refers to the cleansing that Hercules carried out. This can only relate to my psychoanalytic treatment work. There are other points of contact between the dream-figure who bears the name of a month (August) and the person of my friend Fliess, who is represented in yet another part of the same long dream by one of his first names. This is not the only time I have equated myself in my dreams with mythical heroes.

The thought that my friend should recover quickly is present many times over in the dream-thoughts. Any anxiety that his illness might be serious is only timidly expressed. The dream is thus a reaction of my own egoism to the news of my friend’s illness.

How Dreams Represent Opposites

I have already given examples of dreams taking the meaning of words too literally. The patient’s dream about flowers (where her name, Flora, and the mention of camellias were significant) showed her story being told ‘in flowery language.’ This example also showed that the dream can express an opposite by its opposite.

However, this does not cover all the ways dreams deal with contraries or opposites. Dreams also make use of a feeling that is always available: the feeling of motor inhibition (being unable to move). It occurs very frequently in dreams that one is not only unable to do what one wants but is forced to do the opposite.

In one dream, for example, I wanted to hold something back, but instead, I made an involuntary gesture of letting go.
In another dream, I wanted to turn away from someone, and instead, I was forced to turn towards him.
In another, I tried to take hold of something, but a movement of my hand pushed it away.

This is probably connected to a discovery from psychoanalysis: in the unconscious mind, opposites are not distinguished at all. They readily submit to being replaced by each other or represented by the same element. This is particularly true of conceptual opposites that are linked by a common intermediate idea (for example, light and dark are linked by the concept of brightness; large and small are linked by the concept of size). These too are treated as if they were identical by the dream.

Representing “Just As” or “Like”

The dream also has a way of representing the relation ‘just as,’ ‘like,’ similarity, or a point of contact. It does so by unification, either by:

Producing an identification of persons involved (meaning “just as person A is this, so is person B”).
Or by creating a composite formation of things (meaning “since thing A and thing B have this feature in common, they can be represented by an object X that has this common feature too, but also has features of both A and B”). This relationship of similarity is certainly the one most favored by the dream-work.

Representing “No” (Negation)

We are already familiar with one method of representing ‘No’ in dreams: by making the thing done as badly as possible, or by making something one would like to see done only incompletely. We saw an example of this in the dream where I could not find my hat, which contained the thought: ‘I’m not such an honest man after all.’ In interpreting that dream, I made the general claim that what makes it difficult to express negation in dreams is the dominant power of wish-fulfillment. Wish-fulfillment can tolerate ‘No’ as little as our waking self can bear to be unloved. However, experience shows that the unconscious is just as capable of expressing a ‘No,’ and is just as prone to contradiction, as our waking self. So, the dream also has ways of giving a negative meaning to an element in it. My inability to find my hat, though it can be traced back to a real situation, nevertheless functions as a ‘No’ in the dream. It represents the contrary to an assertion made by one of the trains of thought in the dream, just as it appears in our everyday gestures of negation (like shaking one’s head).

Very often, the dream finds a way of expressing the ‘No’ of the dream-thoughts by representing a sensation of motor inhibition. This is one of the meanings of the paralysis so often found in dreams, which the researcher Stricker sought to explain by distinguishing between different kinds of ideas in the dream. But if the analysis is taken further, it is not hard to see that even the most intense sensation of motor inhibition is used by the dream-work to represent a contradiction, a ‘No.’

I will venture to set out some other means of representation used by dreams which I am less confident about. The dream of the dead father whom the dreamer has to care for (like a male nurse) contains the wish that his father might still be alive. His death is represented in the dream as something that happened in the past (‘After his death my father played a part, etc.’). I am not sure that I have correctly interpreted the time-related expression ‘after his death’ in this dream as simply representing this wish. Perhaps the dream is only continuing the fiction that the father is still alive by making him active in the present. I know from another dream that the past as such can also be represented by making something relate to a particular person, whose memory in the dreamer is part of the past and so belongs to it.

Inversion: Turning Things Around

A very common way of representing a contradiction—though not exclusively so, as it may serve other purposes as well—is to turn a particular situation around. This means reversing its component parts, so that what should be at the beginning comes at the end, and vice versa, or what should be up above is now found down below, etc. Inversion is probably one of the oldest, most primitive means of expression that the dream-work has at its disposal. That is why it is so widely used in popular symbolism. We can only speak of inversion, however, if the reversed order of elements found in the dream-content is also an inversion of the order found in the dream-thoughts. It must not be, for example, the consequence of some other factor in the dream material or the dream-work.

General Remarks on Dream Representation

I shall set aside any further general remarks for the concluding chapter, in which I will attempt to penetrate a little further into the nature of the mental processes in dreams. For the moment, I shall content myself with having shown the following:

Those elements in the dream-thoughts which are most prominent as the essential content are treated differently in dream formation than those elements which we may suppose have the greatest mental intensity (emotional charge).
The former—the logically dominant, essential elements—if they find their way into the dream-content at all, are often represented by allusions to them via the most remote elements in the dream-thoughts.
Meanwhile, the elements in the dream which stand out for their vividness are proven by analysis to be those that have been determined many times over by many connections—that is, through condensation.

The main source for “Geseres” is a passage with a sexual reference from the prayers that Jewish people are obliged to recite on certain feast days. In this prayer, the verse occurs: “Each man to himself shall be a Geseres (a source of suffering or a taskmaster).” The word ‘goiser’ (from which Geseres comes) was translated by Martin Luther as ‘Züchtiger’ (chastiser, taskmaster), meaning one who afflicts you with suffering.

This makes the strange words in my dream understandable. The young boy is saying farewell to his penis. As a representative of the other, masculine part of the body, he says of the penis: “Auf Geseres” (To suffering!), because what it offers is suffering. And as for the rest of himself: “Auf Ungeseres” (To non-suffering!), because he will get pleasure from it. This whole sequence of thoughts is prompted by my concern for my own boys, for whom I hope for a destiny better than my own. In this way, my self, as a father, turns out after all to be the center of this apparently selfless dream. But I do not intend the word ‘Geseres’ to imply that Judaism itself is a source of suffering. That thought is far from my mind. The dream’s work of condensation, in which the verbal forms of ideas often have such a hard time, has here used the common ground where the most varied elements of the dream-thoughts met as a pretext for creating a dream element composed of so many parts. It should be added that the dream-thoughts from which this dream arises are particularly rich in elements suitable for condensation. The phrase ‘children of Israel in their flight from Egypt,’ in which the connection Geseres–leavened–unleavened has its roots, sounds like an expression for ‘children escaping from the city,’ which forms the situation for the dream. The Porta Romana in Siena (the city gate), where I found my family in the dream, the fountain beside which I was sitting, the asylum I did not name but knew was there, and other parts of the dream which I have not described, show many references to Jewish history.

The dream appears to be a tangle of the most contradictory feelings: concern for my children, and at the same time tenderness for them and amusement at some of their expressions. But then there is anxiety that they may encounter the same destiny as their people, grief at not being able to give them a homeland, and satisfaction at their being at home in the beauty of Italy. There’s also the painful memory that I have had to do without Italy myself. All of these feelings are inextricably entwined and find expression by being compressed into one dream.

The dream within a dream is a very frequent phenomenon. We know what it is supposed to mean. One must interpret the dream dreamed within the main dream as containing the important thing one wanted the overall dream to say. What follows it, presenting itself as the interpretation of this inner dream, is then to be understood as the real content of the whole dream, but presented in a disguised and indirect way. It is an excellent example of how the dream-work succeeds in smuggling forbidden things past the censorship by making use of an apparent change of level in the dream’s structure. The dream uses the premise: “What is only a dream does not concern me. So I may take the liberty of telling you something that has no basis in reality, etc.” It should be noted, however, that this way of representing one’s thoughts in dreams—this embedding of a dream within a dream—does not occur unless it is based on a memory of a real dream told in the past or a story one has heard. In an example given by the researcher Vaschide (a doctor who dreamed he was doing rounds in a hospital and diagnosing his patients as suffering from the plague, and then dreamed he was telling his wife he had dreamed that dream), it is surely a memory of the fact that he was constantly afraid in those days that he might be carrying a dangerous infection home to his family.

(h) Secondary Revision

I have already mentioned several times that a mental function can be distinguished in dream formation which is not easy to separate from the dream-work proper. This function is, in any case, identical with the work of our waking thought. The business of this function is clearly to arrange the components of the dream in such a way that they form a relatively coherent whole, a dream composition. In this way, the dream is given a kind of “façade” or surface appearance which, it is true, will not hold up under closer scrutiny.

There has been a good deal of discussion in the literature about dreams whether we should attribute all mental activity in dreams to a single power working consistently, or whether we should allow that the dream may have been put together by a variety of quite distinct mental powers. It seems to me that the latter hypothesis, which is also the older one, is by far the preferable and more probable one. I can refer to the authority of a writer like Pierre Janet, whose views on the processes of unconscious mental activity are, of course, closest to those that I hold. As we know, he distinguishes between acts of thinking that are ‘automatic’ and those that result from a higher-order synthesis (a bringing together of elements). He does not think it impossible that products which have arisen from automatic activity might then be reworked by this synthesizing act of thinking, which belongs to the normal mind. This is the same relationship I am assuming exists between the real dream-work and the function I am singling out here from the others, which we can call secondary revision.

In general, the dream-work (condensation, displacement, etc.) operates in a way that is far more careless, irrational, and forgetful than our waking thought. It has rightly been compared to the work of a picador in a bullfight, jabbing the bull’s neck with his lance without any particular order or plan. It’s also like the way a beginner plays the piano, just drumming on the keys. But it cannot be denied that some dreams have a character that doesn’t fit this image. Many of their details are well-ordered, their scenes are intelligibly put together, and they often have a beginning, a middle, and an end, like a poetic creation. In such dreams, one can detect the operation of a function that forms combinations and makes sense, a function not too different from our waking thought. As we know, it is this function that has provided the basis for the theory stating that all dreaming is just a continuation of our waking ideas. We have been forced to contradict this general view through our dream analysis. But at the same time, we must agree that a part of our waking thinking does play a part in dream formation, and we have no grounds for refusing to recognize this as a mental power in its own right.

However, we should be very careful not to overestimate the mental performance of this part of the dream-work (secondary revision). What appears to be an orderly product is often the result of the most arbitrary and direct work of composition. In fact, the part played by this function—which arranges, selects, and orders critically—is very variable.

In some cases, it is virtually absent.
In others, it acts so powerfully that the original material is almost totally obscured by it, as we can see if we compare it to other instances.
It also appears that the effect of this function is not constant from one end of the dream to the other. It is often the case that the dream will have a clearly composed beginning, but as it proceeds, its distinctness wanes, and its final part seems put together in a sloppy fashion and to be quite confused.
Or it may be that the end of the dream is more distinct and seems to make more sense, while the connections to its beginning have been lost to memory.

But what is the purpose of this part of the dream-work, this secondary revision? I believe that here too, we will be on the right lines if we assume that this function also acts in service of wish-fulfillment, trying to secure the dream-wish. This other function proceeds rather like a poet, then, who will revise and polish his poem in manuscript until it gives satisfactory expression to his intentions. But there’s a difference: the poet revises for the sake of the unity of his theme, while the other function (which may also be called the creator of the “dream-façade”) does so for the sake of connection and intelligibility. What this function sets about doing is to make a meaningful whole out of the sequence of dream images that are available. Its first achievement is that it constructs a situation for us out of the jumble of components. In doing so, it creates something like an interpolation (an insertion) between two parts of the dream, if the dream is not actually put together from a whole series of situations. This “first draft” of a dream is then submitted to a further, often very inadequate, revision. This revision seeks to link it up by means of connections and interpolations that make sense, so that the result is the manifest dream. It is just as if we had before us a series of pictures from a newspaper, or a series of texts from some unknown language. The business of this function would then be not only to paste the pictures onto a background but also to supply some connecting text between them. This connecting text that binds the dream images together is surely not always clearly composed or meaningful. But it is often possible to discover, even behind the silliest interpolations of this kind, the trace of a dream-thought that has been trying to reach representation.

The preconscious thinking that is our dominant mode when we are awake behaves towards any material coming to its notice in exactly the same way as this secondary revision function does to the dream-content. It tries to establish some order among this material, to set up relations, and to make it agree with our expectation of something intelligible. In fact, we are not satisfied until we have found some kind of explanation for it. If we look more closely, we will find that all the mental assets enabling us to create a common factor or an intermediary between two other ideas are also used by this function for its particular purposes. It can make use of all sorts of connecting paths, which it stretches between two components of the dream, and it often does so with astonishing ingenuity. This function does not, of course, work with entire freedom in this process. It is obliged to use whatever connecting paths are still available in the material, confused as it is.

In one of the dreams I have recounted already—the absurd story of my father’s illness and death, which he communicates to me himself—this activity of a preconscious function attempting to establish some intelligibility explains the dream. In this case, it has taken something from the real speech of the dying man to compose a nonsensical speech in the dream. By giving this prominence, it has made all the other, more significant parts of the dream-content look like digressions from it. In its attempts to bind together the components of the dream into some context that makes sense, at least on the surface, this function does not hesitate to make alterations to the material and whatever rearrangements it considers appropriate. That is why it also makes it difficult for us to recognize the dream-work proper (condensation, displacement, etc.), which is what we are interested in. But this part of the dream-work—secondary revision—is not specific to dreams. This part is, in fact, common to all our mental operations. We find it whenever we try to grasp something and are confronted by material that we perceive as disconnected. In our attempts to interpret dreams, therefore, we must take care to undo the work of this function. This is particularly so when one is dealing with dreams that appear smoothly composed and ingeniously put together. But it is in dreams that are confused and incoherent that we are able to study the effects of the dream-work proper with greater ease. However, the range of operation of this function should not be underestimated; it extends even to modifying the material to make it fit its purposes.

Summary of Dream Formation Activities

We have now become acquainted with four kinds of activity that go into forming a dream:

Dream-condensation
Dream-displacement
The visual (pictorial) representation of words (and thoughts)
Secondary revision (which is hard to define its limits)

From our examples, we have also learned that the dream-work proceeds by transforming the thoughts into a different mode of expression. This means we must now ask ourselves what conditions the expression of dreams has to satisfy, conditions which are served by these various procedures. We will then be in a position to decide which of these achievements are essential to the dream-work and which are only secondary and optional.

The conditions that determine the form of dreams can easily be stated. The dream-thoughts must be subjected to:

Condensation
Displacement
Pictorial (visual) transformation
Secondary revision (when it occurs, that is).

For it is the activity of our waking thought that makes up this power (the fourth factor, secondary revision). We are describing what happens when we speak of our “second psychical system”—the part of our mind that alone has access to consciousness—extending its activity to the dream material. This dream material was created during the night by the “primary processes” (the earlier, more basic unconscious processes).

For the sake of brevity, I will often speak of this power of secondary revision as if it were an independent entity. There are reasons for this, which will be found in my later account of the mind’s apparatus. However, since we are currently concerned only with the facts of dream formation, we should proceed cautiously. We should acknowledge that the dream’s “first composer” (the primary dream-work involving condensation and displacement) does not set out to achieve a meaningful end. It simply aims to translate the dream-thoughts as quickly as possible into the most pliable and conveniently available material—probably into visual and acoustic memories. It is only the “second composer” (secondary revision) that takes into account the intelligibility and coherence of the dream.

It has been maintained with some reason that even these revisions (by secondary revision) are not invariably present, or that they occur with varying degrees of thoroughness. The dream-work proper, then, takes place only in the domain of the first system (the unconscious). So, the first stage in the process of dream formation is necessarily completed there. When these conditions have been met, the second system (the conscious/preconscious part of the mind) begins its work. It tries to organize the material perceived by the first system and to make it meet the requirements of an intellectual system—that is, as far as it can. It is true that it cannot always achieve this at one go and may need to make fresh attempts and new groupings.

In this way, it could happen that the activity of making revisions would be continuous and sustained until waking brings it to an end. However, this is not what my impression leads me to believe. Rather, I believe that this function of secondary revision comes into play only once during sleep, at a particular moment. What would cause it to do so is something still to be discussed.

One might use the following analogy for the relation of the primary dream-work to the activity of this second agency (secondary revision): We all know how in certain circumstances, we perceive a series of words whose meaning we do not grasp at first. Then, with a certain mental effort, we find that some sense emerges. It is often the case that we begin by mishearing. We only find the right sense when we have replaced the wrongly perceived words with others until we have the ones that do, in fact, fit. The censorship, which is never completely dormant, exercises a comparable influence on the mental material of the dream. It is constantly occupied with removing whatever it finds objectionable and replacing it with something it considers acceptable.

Final Remarks on the Dream-Work

Our discussion of the four activities that make up the dream-work has now come to an end. With it, our task of interpreting dreams is also essentially complete. We can now state with more clarity what the achievements of the dream-work are and where it reveals its limitations.

The dream-work produces the dream-content by:

Condensing the dream-thoughts.
Displacing them.
Transposing them by way of pictorial representation of their content.
But it also creates from them a façade for the dream (secondary revision). This façade is by no means superficial but is intimately related to the heart of the dream, through its activity of selection, arrangement, and interpolation (inserting connecting material).

The dream-work cannot create anything new by its own devices. It does not really think, calculate, or pass judgment at all; its achievements are limited to transforming its material. It is evident that condensation and displacement are the two factors in the dream-work that are specific to dreams. Their operation is responsible for the form of dreams as we experience them. For its operations of transforming and disguising, the dream-work gets a good deal of help from the regard it shows for representability (the need to show things, usually visually). In its formation of the dream-façade (secondary revision), it makes use of all the connecting paths already present in the material. These last two achievements (regard for representability and secondary revision) must be recognized as such, even though they cannot always be sharply distinguished from the activity of our waking thought in all its varieties.

When we recall that the dream-work takes great pains to make its expression in the form of visual perceptions (which is the main form the dream-content takes), we may perhaps venture the following supposition: The dream-work is subject to the constraint that it has to create a version of the dream material that is primarily visual. However, the task of transforming the dream-thoughts into a situation is given over from the very beginning to the mental agency whose ways of operating are familiar to us from our perceptions when we are awake. By setting this condition, we are introducing a certain looseness into our scheme of the dream-work. When we have described the dream-work, we have really done no more than translate the processes of dream formation into the language of our waking conceptual system. But we have not touched upon the question of what the mental nature of these conditions may be that the dream-work has to meet; nor indeed upon the question of what power it may be that is able to realize them. The dream-work is obviously too complicated a process to be explained at one go, and it has to be broken down into its constituent parts.

However, it is certainly true that the influence of this fourth factor (secondary revision), like that of the others, mainly shows itself in the preference and choice it makes from already-formed mental material in the dream-thoughts.

There is only one situation where this function is largely spared its work of building a “façade” onto the dream. This happens if such a structure—a coherent story or sequence—is already present in the material of the dream-thoughts, ready and waiting to be used. The element in the dream-thoughts I am referring to I usually call a fantasy. To avoid misunderstandings, perhaps it’s best if I identify the daydream as its equivalent in waking life.

The part played by this element (fantasy or daydreaming) in our mental life has not yet been fully recognized or revealed. M. Benedikt has made a start in assessing its importance, and a very promising one, it seems to me. The significance of the daydream has not escaped the sharp insight of poets; Alphonse Daudet’s description of the daydreams of one of the minor characters in his novel Nabab is widely known.

The study of psychoneuroses (a category of mental health conditions) leads to a surprising insight: these fantasies or daydreams are the immediate forerunners of hysterical symptoms—at least of a large number of them. Hysterical symptoms often cling not to the memories themselves but only to the fantasies constructed on the basis of those memories.

The frequent occurrence of conscious fantasies during the day draws our attention to these mental formations. But just as conscious fantasies of this kind exist, there are also plenty of unconscious ones. These must remain unconscious because of their content and their origin in repressed material.

If we look more deeply into the nature of these daytime fantasies, we find that they are quite justifiably called by the same name that we give to the productions of our thinking at night: dreams. They share certain essential characteristics with our nighttime dreams. Investigating them could actually have opened up for us the best and most direct path to understanding nighttime dreams.

However, it is certainly true that the influence of this fourth factor (secondary revision), like that of the other dream-work factors, mainly shows itself in the preferences and choices it makes from the already-formed mental material found in the dream-thoughts.

There is only one situation where this secondary revision process is largely spared its work of building a coherent surface story (a “façade”) onto the dream. This happens if such a structured story or sequence already exists within the material of the dream-thoughts, ready and waiting to be used. The element in the dream-thoughts I am referring to, I usually call a fantasy. To avoid misunderstandings, it might be helpful if I identify the daydream as its equivalent in waking life.

The part played by this element—fantasy or daydreaming—in our mental life has not yet been fully recognized or revealed. M. Benedikt has made a start in assessing its importance, and it seems to me to be a very promising one. The significance of the daydream has not escaped the sharp insight of poets. For example, Alphonse Daudet’s description of the daydreams of one of the minor characters in his novel Nabab is widely known.

The study of psychoneuroses (a category of mental health conditions involving anxiety and other symptoms) leads to a surprising insight: these fantasies or daydreams are the immediate forerunners of hysterical symptoms—at least of many of them. Hysterical symptoms often attach themselves not to the memories themselves, but only to the fantasies that have been constructed based on those memories.

The frequent occurrence of conscious fantasies during the day draws our attention to these mental formations. But just as conscious fantasies of this kind exist, there are also plenty of unconscious ones. These unconscious fantasies must remain hidden from our awareness because of their content and because they come from repressed material.

If we look more deeply into the nature of these daytime fantasies, we find that they can quite rightly be called by the same name we give to the productions of our thinking at night: dreams. They share certain essential characteristics with our nighttime dreams. In fact, investigating daydreams could have provided us with the best and most direct way to understand our nighttime dreams.

VII THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DREAM-PROCESSES (Continued)

The character of these deeper memory systems would lie in their close connection to the raw material of memory. If we wanted to suggest a more detailed theory, their character would depend on the different levels of ease or difficulty (the “conductive resistance”) with which mental energy (“excitations”) is transmitted to these memory elements.

Memory and Consciousness

This is a good point to make a general remark that might show something significant. The Perceptual system (Pcpt.)—the part of our mind that receives impressions from our senses—has no ability to store these impressions as memories. However, it offers our consciousness the full range and variety of sensory qualities (what we see, hear, feel, etc.).

In contrast, our memories, even the ones most deeply ingrained, are essentially unconscious. They can be made conscious, but there is no doubt that they can exert all their influence even while in an unconscious state. Indeed, what we call our character is based on memory traces of impressions made on us. In fact, the very impressions that had the greatest influence on us, often from our earliest youth, hardly ever become conscious.

But if memories do become conscious, they do not have any sensory quality, or only a very slight one, compared to our direct perceptions. If it could be confirmed that in these mental systems, memory storage and the quality of having sensory vividness in our consciousness are mutually exclusive, then a very promising insight into how our nerve cells (neurons) become excited might open up for us.

Two Mental Agencies: The Critic and the Criticized

So far, what we have assumed about the mind’s structure at its sensory end has been done without considering dreams or any psychological explanations that might come from them. However, dreams provide proof for our knowledge of another part of this mental apparatus. We have seen that it was impossible for us to explain how dreams are formed if we did not propose that there were two mental agencies, or forces, at work. One of these agencies criticizes the other. As a result of this criticism, the second agency’s activity is excluded from becoming conscious.

The criticizing agency, we decided, has closer connections to consciousness than the agency it criticizes. It stands between the criticized agency and consciousness like a protective screen. We also found some reasons to identify this criticizing agency with the one that guides our waking life and decides our voluntary, conscious actions. If we follow our hypothetical model of the mind and replace these “agencies” with “systems,” then this insight places the criticizing system towards the “motor end” of the apparatus—the end that deals with action and output. We will now introduce these two systems into our diagram of the mind (referred to as Figure 3 in the original text, though not shown here). We will give them names that reflect their relationship to consciousness.

The Preconscious and Unconscious Systems

The last of the systems at the motor end we shall call the Preconscious (Pcs.). This name indicates that the mental arousal processes going on in it can reach consciousness without further obstacles, as long as certain other conditions are met. For example, these processes need to reach a certain intensity or attract a certain amount of what we call attention. At the same time, the Preconscious system holds the key to our voluntary physical actions.

The system behind the Preconscious we call the Unconscious (Ucs.). It is called this because it has no direct access to consciousness except by going through the Preconscious. As its arousal processes make this passage through the Preconscious, they have to put up with being altered.

Where Do Dreams Begin?

In which of these systems, then, should we place the impulse to form dreams? For the sake of simplicity, let’s place it in the Unconscious (Ucs.) system. It’s true, as we will discuss later, that this is not entirely correct. The formation of dreams also has to start from dream-thoughts belonging to the Preconscious system. However, we will also learn, when we discuss the dream-wish, that the driving force (motive force) of the dream comes from the Unconscious. Because of this factor, let us assume for now that the Unconscious system is the starting point for dream formation. Like all other thoughts in the process of formation, a dream stirred up here in the Unconscious will express the urge to move on into the Preconscious, and from there, to gain access to consciousness.

Experience tells us that, for dream-thoughts during the daytime, this route through the Preconscious to consciousness is blocked by the censorship of resistance. At night, however, these thoughts are able to make their own way to consciousness. But questions arise: What path do they take? And what changes enable them to take it? If dream-thoughts were able to reach consciousness simply because the resistance guarding the border between the Unconscious and Preconscious is reduced at night, then we would have dreams made of our usual imagined ideas. These dreams would not display the hallucinatory (vividly sensory, as if real) characteristics that we are currently interested in.

The reduction of censorship between the Unconscious and Preconscious systems, then, can only explain the formation of thought-like dreams (such as the “Autodidasker” dream mentioned earlier). It cannot explain vividly sensory dreams like the one about the burning child, which we used as a problem at the beginning of these investigations.

Regression: The Backward Path of Dreams

We can only describe what goes on in a hallucinatory dream by saying: the mental energy (excitation) takes a retrogressive (backward) route. Instead of moving towards the motor end (action end) of the mental apparatus, it moves towards the sensory end. It finally reaches the system of perceptions. If we call the direction in which mental processes move from the Unconscious when we are awake the progressive (forward) direction, then we may say of dreams that they have a regressive character.

This regression is certainly one of the most important psychological features of dreaming. But we must not forget that it does not only characterize dreams. Intentional remembering and other normal thinking processes also involve a backward movement in the mental apparatus. They start from a complex act of generating imagined ideas and move back to the raw material of memory traces at their foundation. When we are awake, however, this backward reach never stretches further than the remembered images. It is unable to produce the hallucinatory vividness of perceptual images.

Why is this different in dreams? When we discussed the work of condensation in dreams, we had to assume that the intensities attached to imagined ideas are transferred entirely from one idea to another by the dream-work. It is probably this change in normal mental processes that makes it possible to charge the Perceptual system with energy in the reverse direction. This energy starts from thoughts and goes all the way to creating the full intensity of sensory vividness.

I hope we are not deceiving ourselves about the importance of these reflections. All we have done so far is give a name to an unexplained phenomenon. We call it regression when an idea in a dream transforms itself back into the sensory image from which it once emerged. But this step also needs to be justified. Why find a name if it doesn’t teach us anything new? It is my view that the name ‘regression’ is useful because it connects a familiar fact (that dreams are sensory experiences) to our model of a mental apparatus that tends to operate in a certain direction. This is the point where, for the first time, it has been worthwhile to set up such a model.

It is only with the help of this model that we can understand another characteristic of dream formation without having to consider the problem anew. If we regard the process of dreaming as regression within our hypothetical mental apparatus, this immediately explains an empirically established fact: all the logical relations between the dream-thoughts are lost during the dream-work, or are only expressed with difficulty. According to our diagram (the model of the mind), these intellectual relations are not located in the first, most basic memory systems. They are contained in those memory systems lying further along the path (closer to the Preconscious). Except for the perceptual images themselves, these logical relations are bound to lose their specific form of expression during regression. In the course of regression, the tightly-knit web of dream-thoughts is unraveled into its raw material.

Why Regression Happens in Dreams

What changes make this regression—impossible by day—possible in our dreams? We will have to rely on conjectures (educated guesses) on this point. It must, I suppose, involve changes in the degree of energy charging the particular mental systems. These changes make them more or less suitable as paths for mental energy to travel. But in any apparatus of that kind, the same effect on the path of energy could be brought about by more than one type of modification.

One thinks at once, of course, of the state of sleep. Sleep produces changes in the energy levels at the sensory end of the mental apparatus.

By day, there is a continuous current of energy from the Perceptual system towards physical actions.
At night, this current stops. This stopping would no longer prevent the current of mental energy from flowing back in the reverse direction. This would be the ‘withdrawal from the external world’ which some authorities believe explains the psychological nature of dreams.

Meanwhile, in explaining regression in dreams, we also have to consider other regressions that happen in waking states and are pathological (related to mental illness). For these forms of regression, of course, what I have just said about sleep is no help at all. Pathological regression occurs despite the uninterrupted sensory current flowing in a progressive (forward) direction from the senses.

Regression in Hallucinations and Infantile Memories

For the hallucinations of hysteria and paranoia, and the visions of mentally sound people, I can offer this explanation: they do, in fact, correspond to regressions. That is, they are thoughts transformed into images. The only thoughts that undergo this transformation are those that have intimate connections with suppressed or still unconscious memories.

For example, one of my youngest patients suffering from hysteria, a twelve-year-old boy, is prevented from sleeping by “green faces with red eyes,” which fill him with horror.

The source of this vision is the memory—suppressed but once conscious—of a boy he saw very often four years ago. This other boy represented a repellent collection of children’s bad habits, including masturbation, which my patient later accused himself of having committed.
His mother had remarked at the time that the badly behaved boy had a greenish color to his face and red (that is, red-rimmed) eyes.
Hence the terrifying ghoulish vision. This vision, by the way, is only intended to remind him of another prediction his mother made: that boys like that become weak-minded, cannot learn anything at school, and die young.
Our little patient makes part of this prophecy come true: he makes no progress at school. When questioned about the ideas involuntarily entering his mind, he shows he is terribly frightened of the second part of the prophecy (dying young).
However, after a short time, his treatment brought a successful result: he is able to sleep, is losing his fears, and is finishing his school year with an excellent report.

At this point, I can add the explanation of a vision that a forty-year-old patient with hysteria told me about from her days of good health. One morning, she opens her eyes and sees her brother in the room. However, she knows he is in a lunatic asylum. Her little son is asleep in the bed next to her. So that the child should not be frightened and suffer convulsions when he sees his uncle, she draws the sheet over him, and then the vision vanishes. This vision is a reworking of a childhood memory of the lady’s. This memory was conscious, it is true, but it was most intimately related to all the unconscious materials in her mind. Her nurse had told her that her mother, who died early (my patient was only eighteen months old when her mother died), had suffered from epileptic or hysterical convulsions. These convulsions had started, in fact, ever since a fright she had when her brother (my patient’s uncle) appeared to her as a ghost with a sheet over his head. The vision contains the same elements as the memory: the brother’s appearance, the sheet, the fright, and its effect. However, these elements are arranged in a different context and transferred to other figures. The obvious motive for the vision, the thought it replaces, is the worry that her little son, who closely resembles his uncle physically, could share the same fate.

The two examples I have quoted are not entirely free from all connection with the state of sleep. So, they are perhaps not wholly suitable for making the proof I need them for. I refer, then, to my analysis of a patient suffering from hallucinatory paranoia, and to the results of my still unpublished studies of the psychology of psychoneuroses, to reinforce my argument. In these cases of thoughts being regressively transformed back into images, one should not overlook the influence of a suppressed or unconscious memory, most often one from infancy. This memory, as it were, draws the idea connected to it (which has been denied expression by censorship) into the regression. Regression is the form of representation in which the memory itself has its own mental presence.

I may quote one result from my Studies on Hysteria: when we are successful in bringing childhood scenes (whether they are real memories or fantasies) into consciousness, they are seen as hallucinations. They only lose this hallucinatory character when they are communicated (spoken about). It is also widely known that even in people who do not normally have a visual memory, their earliest childhood recollections often have a sensory vividness that is retained and persists into later years.

Infantile Experiences as a Magnet for Regression in Dreams

If we recall the part played in dream-thoughts by infantile experiences (or by fantasies based upon them), and if we bear in mind how often bits of them resurface in the dream-content, and how dream-wishes themselves are often derived from them, then we will not reject this probability: In dreams, too, the transformation of thoughts into images may also be a consequence of the attraction that these memories exert. These memories, now represented in visual terms and aiming for revival, pull on the thoughts that are cut off from consciousness and struggling for expression. According to this view, the dream could also be described as a substitute for an infantile scene. This infantile scene is altered by transferring it onto recent experiences. The scene from infancy cannot be renewed directly; it has to be satisfied with its return as a dream.

One of the hypotheses put forward by the researcher Scherner and his followers is made unnecessary when we point out the significance of infantile scenes (or their repetition in fantasies) as, to some extent, a model for the dream-content. Scherner assumed a condition of ‘visual stimulus,’ or excitation within the organ of sight, when the visual elements of dreams are particularly vivid or numerous. There is no need for us to object to this assumption if all we are doing is confirming that such a condition of excitation simply applies to the perceptual system of the organ of sight. But we shall argue that this condition of excitation is a renewal of a visual stimulus that once actually happened, brought to life by the memory of it.

I have a good example from my own experience of this kind of influence from an infantile recollection. My own dreams generally have fewer sensory elements than I have to reckon with in the dreams of others. But in the most beautiful and vivid dream I have had in recent years, it is easy for me to trace the hallucinatory clarity of the dream-content back to the sensory qualities of recent impressions. I mentioned a dream earlier in which the deep blue color of the water, the brown color of the smoke from the ships’ funnels, and the dark brown and red of the buildings I saw left a profound impression on me. If any dream was to be interpreted in terms of direct visual stimulus, then it was this one. And what had put my organ of sight into this stimulated state? A recent impression, which joined with a number of earlier ones. The colors I saw were, first of all, the colors of the building blocks my children had been playing with on the day before my dream. They had built a wonderful structure for me to admire. The blocks had the same dark red for the big bricks, and blue and brown for the small ones. This was joined by impressions of color from my last Italian journey: the lovely blue of the Isonzo River and the lagoons, and the brown of the Carso region. The beautiful colors in my dream were only a repetition of what I saw in my memory.

Summary of Regression

Let us sum up what we have learned about the peculiar ability of the dream to recast the content of its imaginary ideas into sensory images. We have not explained this characteristic of the dream-work by tracing it back to known laws of psychology. Rather, we have picked it out because it points towards unknown conditions, and we have distinguished it by calling it a ‘regressive’ characteristic. It was our view that wherever it occurs, this regression is probably an effect of:

Resistance, as it opposes the entry of the dream-thought into consciousness along the normal path.
The attraction exercised on the thought at the same time by the presence of strong sensory memories (especially infantile ones).

It may be that in dreams, regression is made easier because, in addition, the progressive (forward) current of energy flowing from the sensory organs during the day also ceases. In other forms of regression (like pathological hallucinations), the absence of this helpful factor (the stopping of the daytime current) has to be made up for by a reinforcement of other motives for regression. Let us not forget to note also that in these cases of pathological regression, as in dreams, the process of transmitting energy may well be different from that of regression in normal mental life. This difference enables the perceptual system to carry a full hallucinatory charge.

What we described when we analyzed the dream-work as ‘having regard to representability’ (the dream’s need to show things visually), we might perhaps relate to the selective attraction exercised by the scenes in our visual memory which the dream-thoughts have touched upon.

It may be that we ourselves have not found this first part of our psychological study of dreams particularly satisfactory. Let us console ourselves that, of necessity, we are building out into the dark, exploring unknown territory. The character of these deeper memory systems would be defined by their close connection to the raw material of memory. If we wanted to point towards a more far-reaching theory, their character would involve how easily or difficultly mental energy (excitations) is transmitted to these memory elements. This ease or difficulty can be thought of as varying levels of “conductive resistance.”

Memory, Consciousness, and Sensory Qualities

This is a good point to make a general observation that might indicate something significant. The Perceptual system (Per.-system)—the part of our mind that receives input from our senses—has no ability to store changes. In other words, it has no memory of its own. However, it offers our consciousness the full range and variety of sensory qualities (what we see, hear, feel, etc.).

In contrast, our memories, even the ones most deeply ingrained, are essentially unconscious. They can be made conscious, but there is no doubt that they can exert all their influence even while in an unconscious state. Indeed, what we call our character is built upon memory traces of impressions made on us. In fact, the very impressions that had the greatest influence on us, from our earliest youth, hardly ever become conscious.

But if memories do become conscious, they do not display any sensory quality, or only a very slight one, compared to our direct perceptions. If it could be confirmed that in these mental systems (which we’re calling ψ-systems), memory and the quality of having sensory experience in our consciousness are mutually exclusive, then a very promising insight into how our nerve cells (neurons) become excited opens up for us.

Dreams and the Structure of the Mind

What we have assumed so far about how the mind is structured at its sensory end has been done without considering dreams or any psychological explanations that might come from them. However, dreams provide proof for our knowledge of another part of the mind’s apparatus. We have seen that it was impossible for us to explain how dreams are formed if we did not propose the hypothesis that there were two mental agencies (or functions). One of these agencies subjected the other to criticism, which resulted in the second one being excluded from becoming conscious.

The criticizing agency, we decided, has closer relations to consciousness than the criticized agency. It stands between the criticized agency and consciousness like a protective screen. We also found some grounds for identifying this criticizing agency with the one that guides our waking life and decides our voluntary and conscious actions. If we follow our hypothetical model, then, and replace these agencies with systems, this insight shifts the criticizing system towards the “motor end” of our mental apparatus (the end that deals with action and output). We will now introduce these two systems into our diagram of the mind, and the names we give them will express their relation to consciousness. (The author refers to diagrams here to help visualize this model).

The Preconscious and Unconscious Systems

The last of the systems at the motor end, the one closest to consciousness, we shall call the Preconscious (Pcs.). We call it this to indicate that the mental energy processes going on in it are able to reach consciousness without further obstacles, as long as certain other conditions are met. For example, these processes need to reach a certain intensity or attract a certain amount of what we call “attention.” At the same time, the Preconscious holds the key to our voluntary physical actions.

The system behind it, further from consciousness, we call the Unconscious (Ucs.). It is called this because it has no direct access to consciousness except by way of the Preconscious. Also, its arousal processes have to endure alterations as they pass through the Preconscious.

Where Do Dreams Begin?

In which of these systems, then, should we place the impulse to form dreams? For the sake of simplification, let’s place it in the Unconscious (Ucs.) system. True, we will learn in later discussions that this is not entirely correct. The formation of dreams is bound to start out from dream-thoughts belonging to the Preconscious system. However, we will also learn, when we discuss the dream-wish, that the driving force of the dream is contributed by the Unconscious. Because of this factor, let us assume that the Unconscious system is the starting point for dream formation. Like all other thoughts in the process of formation, a dream stirred here will express the urge to move on into the Preconscious system, and from there to gain access to consciousness.

Experience tells us that, for dream-thoughts during the daytime, this route leading through the Preconscious to consciousness is blocked by the censorship of resistance. At night, however, they are able to make their own way to consciousness. But questions arise:

What path do they take?
What changes enable them to take it?

If the dream-thoughts were able to reach consciousness simply because the resistance guarding the border between the Unconscious and Preconscious is reduced at night, then we would have dreams made of our usual imagined ideas. These dreams would not display the hallucinatory (vividly sensory) characteristics that we are currently interested in.

So, the reduction of censorship between the Unconscious and Preconscious systems can only explain the formation of thought-like dreams (such as the “Autodidasker” dream discussed earlier). It cannot explain hallucinatory dreams, like the dream of the burning child, which we presented as a problem at the beginning of these investigations.

Regression: The Backward Path of Dreams

We can only describe what goes on in a hallucinatory dream by saying: the mental energy (excitation) takes a retrogressive route—a backward path. Instead of moving towards the motor end (action end) of the mental apparatus, it moves towards the sensory end. It finally reaches the system of perceptions. If we call the direction in which mental processes move from the Unconscious when we are awake the progressive (forward) direction, then we may say of dreams that they have a regressive (backward) character.

In that case, this regression is certainly one of the most important psychological features of dreaming. But we must not forget that it does not only characterize dreams. Intentional remembering, too, and other processes that are part of our normal thinking, correspond to a backward direction taken in the mental apparatus. This starts from a complex act of generating imagined ideas and moves back to the raw material of the memory traces at its foundation. When we are awake, however, this backward reach never stretches further than the remembered images. It is unable to produce the hallucinatory vividness of perceptual images.

Why is this different in dreams? When we discussed the work of condensation in dreams, we had to assume that the intensities attached to imagined ideas are transferred entirely from one idea to another by the dream-work. It is probably this change in the normal mental processes that makes it possible for the Perceptual system to be charged with energy in the reverse direction. This energy starts from thoughts and goes all the way to creating the height of sensory vividness.

I hope we are not deceiving ourselves about the importance of these reflections. All we have done is give a name to an unexplained phenomenon. We call it regression when an idea in a dream transforms itself back into the sensory image from which it once, at some time, emerged. But this step also needs to be justified. Why find a name, if it does not teach us anything new? It is my view that the name ‘regression’ is useful because it connects a familiar fact (that dreams are sensory) to our model of a mental apparatus that tends to operate in a certain direction. This is the point where, for the first time, it has been worthwhile to set up such a model.

With the help of this scheme, we can understand another characteristic of dream formation without having to consider the problem from scratch. If we regard the process of dreaming as regression within our hypothetical mental apparatus, this immediately explains an empirically established fact: all the logical relations between the dream-thoughts are lost during the dream-work, or are only expressed with difficulty. According to our diagram, these intellectual relations are not located in the first memory systems but are contained in those lying further “downstream” (closer to the conscious, thinking end). Except for perceptual images, these logical relations are bound to lose their specific form of expression during regression. In the course of regression, the tightly-knit web of dream-thoughts is unraveled into its raw material.

What Makes Regression Possible in Dreams?

What changes make this regression—impossible by day—possible in our dreams? We will have to rely on conjectures here. It must, I suppose, involve changes in the degree of energy charging the particular mental systems, making them more or less suitable as paths for mental energy to travel. But in any apparatus of that kind, the same effect on the path of energy could be brought about by more than one type of modification.

One thinks at once, of course, of the state of sleep and the changes in energy levels it produces at the sensory end of the apparatus.

By day, there is a continuous current of energy from the Perceptual system towards actions.
At night, this current ends. This might allow the current of mental energy to flow back in the reverse direction. This would be the ‘withdrawal from the external world’ that some authorities believe explains the psychological nature of dreams.

Meanwhile, in explaining regression in dreams, we must also consider other regressions that happen in waking states and are pathological (related to illness). In these forms, of course, what I have just said about sleep is no help at all. Regression occurs in these cases despite the uninterrupted sensory current flowing in a progressive (forward) direction from the senses.

Regression in Hallucinations and Infantile Memories

For example, one of my youngest patients suffering from hysteria, a twelve-year-old boy, is prevented from sleeping by ‘green faces with red eyes,’ which fill him with horror.

The source of this apparition is the memory, suppressed but once conscious, of a boy he saw very often four years ago. This other boy represented a repellent collection of children’s bad habits, including masturbation, which my patient later accused himself of having committed.
His mother had remarked at the time that the badly behaved boy had a greenish color to his face and red (that is, red-rimmed) eyes.
Hence the terrifying ghoulish faces. These were also intended to remind him of another of his mother’s predictions: that boys like that become weak-minded, cannot learn anything at school, and die young.
Our little patient makes part of this prophecy come true; he makes no progress at school. When questioned about the ideas involuntarily entering his mind, he shows he is terribly frightened of the second part of the prophecy (dying young).
However, after a short time, his treatment brought a successful result: he is able to sleep, is losing his fears, and is finishing his school year with an excellent report.

At this point, I can add the resolution of a vision that a forty-year-old patient with hysteria told me about from her days of good health. One morning, she opened her eyes and saw her brother in the room. However, she knew he was in a lunatic asylum. Her little son was asleep in the bed next to her. So that the child should not be frightened and suffer convulsions when he saw his uncle, she drew the sheet over her son, and then the apparition vanished. This vision is a reworking of a childhood memory of the lady’s. This memory was conscious, it is true, but it was most intimately related to all the unconscious materials in her mind. Her nurse had told her that her mother, who died early (my patient was only eighteen months old at the time), had suffered from epileptic or hysterical convulsions. These convulsions had started ever since a fright she had when her brother (my patient’s uncle) appeared to her as a ghost with a sheet over his head. The vision contains the same elements as the memory: the brother’s apparition, the sheet, the fright, and its effect. However, these elements are arranged in a different context and transferred to other figures. The obvious motive for the vision, the thought it replaces, is the worry that her little son, who closely resembled his uncle physically, could share the same fate.

The two examples I have quoted are not entirely free from all connection with the state of sleep. So, they are perhaps not wholly suitable for making the proof I need them for. I refer, then, to my analysis of a patient suffering from hallucinatory paranoia, and to the results of my still unpublished studies of the psychology of psychoneuroses, to reinforce my argument. In these cases of thoughts regressively transformed back into images, one should not overlook the influence of a suppressed or unconscious memory, most often one from infancy. This memory, as it were, draws the idea connected to it (an idea denied expression by censorship) into the regression. Regression is the form of representation in which this memory has its own mental presence.

I may quote one result from my Studies on Hysteria: when we are successful in bringing scenes from childhood (whether they are recollections or fantasies) into consciousness, they are seen as hallucinations. They only lose this character when they are communicated (spoken about). It is also widely known that even in people who do not normally have a strong visual memory, their earliest childhood recollections are characterized by a sensory vividness that is retained and persists into later years.

If we recall the part played in dream-thoughts by childhood experiences, or by fantasies based upon them, and if we bear in mind how often bits of them resurface in the dream-content, and how dream-wishes themselves are often derived from them, then we will not reject this probability: in dreams, too, the transformation of thoughts into images may also be a consequence of the attraction that their memory exercises. This memory, now represented in visual terms and aiming for revival, pulls on the thoughts that are cut off from consciousness and struggling for expression. According to this view, the dream could also be described as the substitute for an infantile scene, altered by transferring the scene onto recent experiences. The scene from infancy cannot be renewed directly; it has to be satisfied with its return as a dream.

Visual Stimulus and Infantile Recollections

One of the hypotheses put forward by the researcher Schemer and his followers is made unnecessary when we point out the significance of infantile scenes (or their repetition in fantasies) as, to some extent, a model for the dream-content. Schemer assumes a condition of ‘visual stimulus,’ or excitation within the organ of sight, when the visual elements of dreams are particularly vivid or plentiful. There is no need for us to object to this assumption if all we are doing is confirming that such a condition of excitation simply applies to the perceptual system of the organ of sight. But we shall argue that this condition of excitation is a renewal of a visual stimulus that once actually happened, brought to an alert state by the memory of it.

I have a good example from my own experience of this kind of influence from a childhood recollection. My own dreams generally have fewer sensory elements than I have to reckon with in the dreams of others. But in the most beautiful and vivid dream I have had in recent years, it is easy for me to trace the hallucinatory clarity of the dream-content back to the sensory qualities of recent impressions. I mentioned a dream earlier in which the deep blue color of the water, the brown color of the smoke from the ships’ funnels, and the dark brown and red of the buildings I saw left a profound impression on me. If any dream was to be interpreted in terms of visual stimulus, then it was this one. And what had put my organ of sight into this stimulated state? A recent impression, which joined with a number of earlier ones. The colors I saw were, first of all, the colors of the building blocks my children had been playing with on the day before my dream. They had built a wonderful structure for me to admire. The blocks had the same dark red for the big bricks, and blue and brown for the small ones. This was joined by impressions of color from my last Italian journey: the lovely blue of the Isonzo River and the lagoons, and the brown of the Carso region. The beautiful colors in my dream were only a repetition of what I saw in my memories.

Summary of Regression

Let us sum up what we have learned about the peculiar ability of the dream to recast the content of its imaginary ideas into sensory images.

We have not explained this characteristic of the dream-work by tracing it back to known laws of psychology. Rather, we have picked it out because it points towards unknown conditions, and we have distinguished it by calling it a ‘regressive’ characteristic.
It was our view that wherever it occurs, this regression is probably an effect of resistance (as it opposes the entry of the dream-thought into consciousness along the normal path). It is also an effect of the attraction exercised on the thought by the presence of strong sensory memories.
It may be that in dreams, regression is made easier because, in addition, the progressive (forward) current of energy flowing from the sensory organs during the day also ceases.
In other forms of regression (like pathological hallucinations), the absence of this helpful factor (the stopping of the daytime sensory current) has to be made up for by a strengthening of other motives for regression.
Let us not forget to note also that in these cases of pathological regression, as in dreams, the process of transmitting energy may well be different from that of regression in normal mental life. This difference enables the perceptual system to carry a full hallucinatory charge.
What we described when we analyzed the dream-work as ‘having regard to representability’ (the dream’s need to show things visually), we might perhaps relate to the selective attraction exercised by the scenes in our visual memory that the dream-thoughts have touched upon.

The main source for the word “Geseres” in my dream is one of the passages with a sexual reference from the prayers that Jewish people are obliged to recite on certain feast days. In this prayer, the verse occurs: “Each man to himself shall be a Geseres.” Martin Luther, in his translation, rendered the Hebrew root word ‘goiser’ as ‘Züchtiger,’ meaning a chastiser or taskmaster—one who afflicts you with suffering.

This makes the strange words my son speaks in the dream intelligible. The young boy is saying farewell to his penis. As a representative of the other, masculine part of the body, he says of the penis: “Auf Geseres” (meaning, “To suffering!”), because what it offers is suffering. And as for the rest of himself, he says: “Auf Ungeseres” (meaning, “To non-suffering!”), because he will get pleasure from it. This whole sequence of thoughts is prompted by my concern for my own boys, for whom I hope for a destiny better than my own. In this way, my self, as a father, turns out after all to be the center of this apparently altruistic (unselfish) dream. But I do not intend the word ‘Geseres’ to imply that Judaism itself is a source of suffering. That thought is far from my mind. The dream’s work of condensation, in which the verbal forms of ideas often have such a hard time, has here used the common ground where the most varied elements of the dream-thoughts met as a reason for creating a dream element (“Geseres”) composed of so many parts. It should be added that the dream-thoughts from which this dream arises are particularly rich in elements suitable for condensation. The phrase ‘children of Israel in their flight from Egypt’ (in which the connection Geseres–leavened–unleavened has its roots) sounds like an expression for ‘children escaping from the city,’ which forms the situation for the dream. The Porta Romana (Roman Gate) in Siena, where I found my family in the dream, the fountain beside which I was sitting, the asylum I did not name but knew was there, and other parts of the dream which I have not shared, show many references to Jewish history.

The dream within a dream (when a dream character says they are dreaming) is a very frequent phenomenon. We know what it is supposed to mean. One must interpret the dream dreamed within the main dream as containing the important thing the overall dream wanted to say. What follows it, presenting itself as the interpretation of this inner dream, is then to be understood as the real content of the whole dream, but presented in a disguised and indirect way. It is an excellent example of how the dream-work succeeds in smuggling forbidden things past the censorship by making use of an apparent change of level in the dream’s structure. The dream uses the premise: “What is only a dream does not concern me. So I may take the liberty of telling you something that has no basis in reality, etc.” It should be noted, however, that this way of representing one’s thoughts in dreams—this embedding of a dream within a dream—does not occur unless it is based on a memory of a real dream told in the past or a story one has heard. In an example given by the researcher Vaschide (a doctor who dreamed he was doing rounds in a hospital and diagnosing his patients as suffering from the plague, and then dreamed he was telling his wife he had dreamed that dream), it is surely a memory of the fact that he was constantly afraid in those days that he might be carrying a dangerous infection home to his family.

The Role of the Unconscious Wish and Daytime Thoughts

As far as the formation of dreams is concerned, then, I shall let wishful impulses arising from conscious waking life take a backseat. The only function I will grant them is possibly to provide material for active sensations during sleep. I shall stay on this course when I now consider the other mental stimuli remaining from the life of the day which are not wishes.

It is possible for us to temporarily end the energy charges of our waking life when we decide to go to sleep. Anyone who can do that well is a good sleeper; Napoleon I is supposed to have been a model of this kind. But this is not always successful and not always complete. Problems needing to be settled, cares tormenting us, and overwhelming impressions continue the activity of our thoughts into our sleep too. They keep mental processes going in the system we have called the Preconscious.

If we want to classify these stirrings of thought that continue into sleep, we can set up the following groups:

What has been left unfinished by some chance delay during the day.
What has been left unsettled or unsolved by some failure of our thinking powers.
What has been rejected and suppressed during the day. These are joined by a powerful fourth group:
What has been stirred in our Unconscious by the work of the Preconscious during the day. And finally, we can add a fifth group:
The unimportant—and therefore unresolved—impressions of the day.

There is no need to underestimate the mental intensities that these “remains of the day” introduce into the state of sleep, especially from the group of unresolved problems. It is certain that these impulses are still struggling for expression at night too. We may assume just as surely that the state of sleep makes it impossible for the usual process of mental energy to continue in the Preconscious and become conscious as it normally would. If we are able to be conscious of our thinking processes at night in the normal way, we are simply not asleep. What kind of change in the Preconscious system is brought about by the state of sleep, I cannot say. But there is no doubt that the psychological characteristic of sleep is to be looked for essentially in the changes of energy charge in this system. This system also controls access to our power of movement, which is paralyzed in sleep. Against this, there is nothing I know of in the psychology of dreams that makes us assume sleep is anything but a secondary factor in bringing about changes in the Unconscious system. No other way is left, then, for the nighttime excitation in the Preconscious than the one the wishful impulses from the Unconscious take. It has to look to the Unconscious for reinforcement and join in following the detours of the unconscious excitations.

However, what is the attitude of the preconscious “remains of the day” towards the dream? There is no doubt that they enter the dream in large quantities. They make use of the dream-content to make their presence felt by consciousness, even at night. Indeed, on occasion, they dominate the dream-content, compelling it to continue the work of the day. It is also certain that the remains of the day can just as easily be characterized by other things besides wishes. But even so, it is very instructive—and for the theory of wish-fulfillment, quite decisive—to see what condition they have to accept to gain entry into the dream.

The Daytime Thought as “Entrepreneur,” the Unconscious Wish as “Capitalist”

Let us take one of our earlier examples: the dream that had my friend Otto appear with the symptoms of Basedow’s disease. During the day, my thoughts were troubled on account of Otto’s appearance. This unease worried me deeply, like everything touching this person. It also pursued me, I assume, into my sleep. I probably wanted to find out what was the matter with him. At night, this concern found expression in the dream I have related. In the first place, its content was nonsensical. In the second, it did not correspond to any wish-fulfillment on the surface. However, I began to investigate where this inappropriate expression of my daytime concern came from. In the course of analysis, I discovered a connection by which I identified him with a certain Baron L., and myself, on the other hand, with Professor R. There was only one explanation for why I was obliged to choose this particular substitute for my daytime thought: In my Unconscious, I must always have been prepared to identify with Professor R., because this was the fulfillment of one of my immortal childhood wishes—my desire for greatness. Ugly thoughts towards my friend Otto, which I would certainly reject by day, had used the opportunity to slip into the dream’s representation and become part of it. But my daytime worry, too, had also found some sort of expression by means of a substitute in the dream-content. The daytime thought, which was not in itself a wish but, on the contrary, a worry, was forced to find some route to connect to an infantile wish—one now unconscious and suppressed. This wish then enabled the worry to “originate” (to appear), though suitably disguised, in consciousness via the dream. The more dominating this worry was, the more forceful the linking required could be. There was no need for any connection at all to exist between the content of the wish and the content of the worry, nor was there any in our example.

I am now able to give a precise account of the significance of the unconscious wish for dreams. I grant that there is an entire group of dreams initiated mainly, or even exclusively, by the “remains of the day.” I think that even my wish to become a professor at long last could have allowed me to sleep in peace that night, if my unease about my friend’s health had not still been stirring from the day. But even so, this worry would still not have produced a dream. The driving force that the dream needed had to be contributed by a wish. It was up to the worry to find a wish for itself that would act as the driving force of the dream.

To put it in the form of a comparison:

The daytime thought might possibly play the part of an entrepreneur for the dream. The entrepreneur has the idea, as we say, and the will to translate it into action.
But the entrepreneur still cannot do anything without capital. He needs a capitalist to cover the expenses.
The capitalist in this case, who contributes the mental energy for the dream, is always and without fail, whatever the daytime thought may be, a wish from the Unconscious.

On other occasions, the capitalist is himself the entrepreneur. In dreams, indeed, that is the more usual case. An unconscious wish has been aroused by the day’s work, and it now creates the dream. All the other situations possible in the economic circumstances I have just suggested as an example also have their parallels in the procedures of the dream:

The entrepreneur might contribute a small amount of capital himself.
Several entrepreneurs might turn to the same capitalist.
Several capitalists might club together and provide what the entrepreneurs require. Likewise, there are also dreams that are supported by more than one wish, and there are further variations of a similar kind. These can easily be reviewed and are of no more interest to us at this moment. We shall only later be in a position to fill any gaps there may be in this account of the dream-wish.

Wish-Fulfillment as the Center of Dream Intensity

The tertium comparationis (the common point of comparison) in the analogies I have been drawing—the idea of an “appropriate amount made available,” like capital for an entrepreneur—can be used with finer detail to explain the structure of the dream. In most dreams, it is possible to recognize a center that has particularly strong sensory intensity. As a rule, this is the direct representation of the wish-fulfillment. If we reverse the displacements of the dream-work, we find that the mental intensity of the elements in the dream-thoughts is replaced by the sensory intensity of the elements in the dream-content.

The elements in the neighborhood of the wish-fulfillment often have nothing to do with its meaning. Rather, they turn out to be the products of distressing thoughts that go against the wish. However, from their often-contrived connection with the element at the center (the wish-fulfillment), enough intensity has “rubbed off” on them to give them the potential for representation in the dream. In this way, the wish-fulfillment’s power of representation is spread across a certain contextual sphere. Within this sphere, all the elements, even the weakest, are enabled to appear in the dream. In dreams driven by several wishes, it is easy to distinguish the spheres of the particular wish-fulfillments from one another. Often, gaps in the dreams can also be read as border zones between these spheres.

The Necessity of Daytime Remains

Although these observations have limited the significance of the “remains of the day” for the dream, it is still worthwhile to pay some further attention to them. After all, they must be a necessary ingredient in forming the dream, if we are surprised by the fact that every dream shows some link to a recent impression from the day—often of the most trivial sort—as part of its content. We have not yet been able to understand the necessity for this added ingredient to the dream-mixture. And we will only do so if we hold fast to the part played by the unconscious wish and then turn to the psychology of neuroses for information.

VII THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DREAM-PROCESSES

How Unconscious Ideas Get Expressed

We’ve learned something important about how our minds work. An idea in your unconscious mind (the deepest part, full of hidden thoughts and desires) can’t just pop into your preconscious mind (the area closer to your awareness, holding things you could become aware of).

To get any attention, an unconscious idea has to do something clever. It attaches itself to a harmless, neutral idea that’s already in your preconscious. The unconscious idea then transfers its energy or emotional strength onto this harmless idea. It’s like the unconscious idea is hiding behind the preconscious one.

This process is called transference. Transference helps explain many strange things that happen in the inner lives of people with neuroses (mental or emotional conditions involving distress).

What Happens During Transference?

Transference can affect the harmless preconscious idea in two main ways:

It can make the preconscious idea seem much more intense or important than it really is. The original preconscious idea doesn’t change in content, but it gets a big boost of emotional energy from the unconscious idea.
It can actually change the preconscious idea. The content of the unconscious idea can force its way into the preconscious idea, altering what it’s about.

An Everyday Example of Transference

Imagine someone who isn’t officially qualified to do a certain job, like a dentist from another country without a local license. To work, they might need to team up with a licensed local professional who acts as their official “cover.” The repressed unconscious idea is like that unlicensed dentist. The preconscious idea is like the licensed professional who provides the public face or cover.

Which Preconscious Ideas Are Chosen?

Now, think about which licensed professionals would agree to such a partnership. It’s usually not the busiest or most successful ones who already have plenty of their own work. Similarly, in our minds, strong, important, and attention-grabbing preconscious ideas are not usually the ones chosen to cover up a repressed unconscious idea.

Instead, the unconscious mind prefers to use preconscious ideas or impressions that:

Have been ignored because they seemed unimportant.
Were noticed for a moment but then quickly dismissed or rejected.

Why These Ideas?

There’s a known concept in how we associate ideas: if an idea is already strongly connected to one particular thing, it tends to stay away from forming lots of new connections. The unconscious mind takes advantage of this. It uses those overlooked or rejected preconscious ideas because they are more available to form a new link with the hidden unconscious content. I once tried to use this idea to develop a theory about hysterical paralysis.

Transference in Dreams

Now, let’s think about dreams. If repressed ideas in people with neuroses need transference to get expressed, it makes sense that the same process happens in dreams.

This idea of transference in dreams can immediately solve two mysteries about them:

When we analyze dreams, we almost always find they include a recent experience or impression, often from the day before.
This recent element is often something very small and unimportant – something trivial.

We’ve also learned elsewhere that these recent and unimportant bits show up in dreams so often because they act as stand-ins for much older, deeper dream thoughts. Why these particular bits? Because they are less likely to be blocked by our mind’s internal censorship. Censorship is the mental barrier that stops certain thoughts from becoming conscious, often because they are disturbing or unacceptable.

So, the fact that these elements are trivial helps them avoid censorship. But the fact that recent elements are so common points to this need for transference.

The repressed unconscious ideas are looking for material in the preconscious that isn’t already tied up with lots of other thoughts or associations. Both trivial and recent impressions fit this description:

Trivial impressions work well because they were never considered important enough to create many mental links.
Recent impressions work well because there hasn’t been enough time for them to form many mental links.

The Role of “Day’s Residues”

So, those leftover bits from our day – what we call the day’s residues, which often include these trivial impressions – play a double role in creating dreams.

They get energy from the unconscious mind. When these day’s residues become part of a dream, they borrow the driving force that comes from a repressed unconscious wish.
They give something crucial to the unconscious mind. They provide the necessary “hook” or point of attachment that the unconscious idea needs to transfer its energy and content.

If we wanted to understand these internal processes even better, we’d need to look more closely at how excitement or energy flows between the preconscious and unconscious minds. Studying psychoneuroses really pushes us to do this. However, dreams by themselves don’t give us enough information to explore this particular aspect more deeply.

Day’s Residues vs. Dreams and Sleep

One more quick point about these day’s residues: It’s important to understand that they are what really disturb our sleep. Dreams, on the other hand, actually try to protect our sleep. We will talk more about this idea later.

The Dream’s Wish and Waking Thoughts

So far, we’ve been tracking down the wish that lies behind every dream. We’ve seen that this wish comes from the unconscious mind. We’ve also looked at how it connects with the day’s residues. These residues can be wishes themselves, other kinds of mental urges, or just recent impressions.

By doing this, we’ve shown that our many thoughts from when we’re awake do play an important role in forming dreams.

It’s even possible that this way of thinking could explain those rare dreams where we continue working on a problem from our day and actually solve it in the dream. What we’re missing is a clear, analyzed example of such a dream. An ideal example would show how an old, repressed wish from childhood provided the extra push needed to help our preconscious mind solve the problem.

However, we still haven’t solved a bigger puzzle: During sleep, why does the unconscious mind seem only able to provide the power to create a wish-fulfillment? Why this focus on fulfilling wishes?

The answer to this question should tell us a lot about what wishing itself is, from a psychological point of view. We’ll use our model of how the mind works (our “psychical apparatus”) to find this answer.

How Wishing Develops: A Look at the Early Mind

Our minds are complex, and they didn’t become this way overnight. They developed over a very long time. Let’s try to imagine what the mind was like in its earliest stages.

The Mind’s First Goal: Staying Calm

Some ideas suggest that the mind’s first goal was to stay as calm and free from stimulation as possible. In its earliest form, it probably worked like a simple reflex. If any feeling or sensation came in from the outside world, the mind would try to get rid of it immediately through some kind of action. Think of jumping when startled.

Life’s Demands Force Change

But life isn’t that simple. The basic demands of living interrupted this very basic function. These demands actually pushed the mind to grow and become more complex.

The first major demands the mind faced were strong bodily needs, like hunger or thirst.

Dealing with Internal Needs

When an internal need arises (like hunger), it creates tension. The mind tries to release this tension through some kind of action. We could call this an “internal change” or an “expression of emotion.” For example, a hungry baby will cry or thrash around.

However, just crying doesn’t make the hunger go away. The tension from an internal need isn’t like a brief jolt; it’s a constant pressure.

A real change only happens when the need is actually met. For a baby, this usually means someone helps them. This is the experience of satisfaction. It cancels out the internal feeling of need.

A crucial part of this satisfaction is a specific perception – for example, the sight, taste, and feeling of food. The memory of this perception then gets linked in the mind with the memory of the feeling of need.

The Birth of a Wish

Because of this link, the next time the same need arises, a mental urge or impulse will occur. This impulse will try to bring back the memory of the satisfying perception. It will try to recreate that perception in the mind. What the mind really wants is to bring back the entire situation of the original satisfaction.

This kind of impulse is what we call a wish.

The reappearance of the perception (even if just in memory) is the fulfillment of the wish.
The quickest way to achieve this wish-fulfillment is to fully activate the memory of the perception, making it feel real, as if it’s happening now.

We can imagine a very early, primitive state of the mind where this pathway was common – where wishing simply ended in hallucinating the desired perception.

So, this earliest activity of the mind aimed for what we can call perceptual identity. This means it tried to repeat the exact perception that was linked to satisfying a need.

Learning from Experience: A Smarter Way to Wish

Harsh life lessons must have changed this primitive way of thinking. The mind had to develop a more adaptable, secondary way to operate.

Simply creating a “perceptual identity” – a hallucination – by going backward into memory doesn’t work as well as getting the real thing from the outside world. The hallucination doesn’t bring real satisfaction; the underlying need continues.

To make an internal mental image feel as real as an external perception, the mind has to constantly work at it. This is what happens in certain mental conditions like hallucinatory psychoses or in intense hunger fantasies, where the mind just clings to the image of what it desires.

A More Effective Path

To use mental energy more effectively and purposefully, the mind needed to learn to stop this complete backward slide into hallucination. The process shouldn’t go further than just recalling the memory image.

From that memory image, the mind can then search for different paths – paths in the real world – that will eventually lead to creating the desired satisfaction from external reality.

This ability to stop (inhibit) the full hallucination and redirect the mental energy is the job of a second mental system. This second system controls our voluntary movements – the actions we take to achieve goals we’ve already thought about.

All the complex thinking that goes from a memory image to finally getting what we want from the outside world is just a longer, roundabout way to fulfill a wish. Experience taught the mind that this longer path is necessary.

Thinking as a Substitute for Hallucination

In fact, thinking itself is nothing more than a substitute for a hallucinatory wish.

So, it becomes clear why dreams are wish-fulfillments: only a wish has the power to get our mental machinery working.

Dreams fulfill their wishes by taking the short, direct, “regressive” path back to hallucination. In this way, dreams show us a sample of the mind’s original, primary way of working. This primary method was largely abandoned for waking life because it wasn’t practical.

This primitive way of mental functioning seems to be mostly confined to nighttime and dreams now. It’s like old tools that humanity once relied on, such as the bow and arrow. Adults have set them aside for more advanced tools, but you might still find them as toys in a child’s nursery.

Dreaming, then, is a piece of our mind’s “childhood” – a stage it has mostly grown out of.

In cases of psychosis (severe mental illness), these primary ways of mental functioning, which are normally kept in check during our waking hours, can forcefully reappear. When they do, it becomes very clear how unhelpful they are for satisfying our needs in the real world.

Unconscious Wishes During the Day and the Role of Censorship

It’s clear that unconscious wishes don’t just operate at night; they also try to push their way out during the day. We see this in transference and in psychoses. These unconscious impulses are trying to move through the preconscious system to reach our conscious awareness and even take control of our actions.

This brings us back to the idea of censorship – the barrier between the unconscious and the preconscious. Dreams really force us to believe this censorship exists. We should recognize and appreciate this censorship as the guardian of our mental health.

Is Relaxed Censorship at Night Risky?

Now, a question might arise: Isn’t it unwise for this mental guardian (censorship) to lower its guard at night? Doesn’t this allow suppressed unconscious impulses to come out and even let us have hallucinatory experiences in dreams?

I don’t believe this is risky. Here’s why: When this critical guardian (censorship) rests at night – and we have reasons to think it’s not in a very deep sleep – it also shuts down the pathway to physical action.

So, whatever impulses from the normally controlled unconscious mind might run wild in our dreams, they can be left alone. They are harmless because they cannot make our bodies move or do things that would change the outside world. The state of sleep itself keeps our mental “fortress” safe.

When Things Become Dangerous

The situation is much less safe if the balance of mental forces is upset in other ways. It’s dangerous if:

The critical censorship is pathologically weakened (due to illness, not just normal sleep).
Or, if unconscious urges become pathologically super-strong.
And critically, if this happens while the preconscious mind is still energized and the pathways to physical action are still open.

In such cases, the guardian (censorship) is overpowered. The unconscious impulses break through and take over the preconscious mind. From there, they can control what we say and do. Or, they can force those hallucinatory regressions, guiding our mental processes in ways they weren’t designed for, all because of the strong pull that perceptions have on our mental energy.

When this happens, we call the condition psychosis.

Building Our Understanding of the Mind

This discussion is helping us build a clearer picture of how the mind works, especially with its two main systems: the Unconscious and the Preconscious.

But let’s pause and focus again on the idea that a wish is the only driving force behind a dream. We’ve said that a dream is always a wish-fulfillment. This is because dreams come from the Unconscious system. The Unconscious system has only one goal: to fulfill wishes. And it only has the power of wishful urges to work with.

Dreams and Other Mental Expressions

If we want to use dream interpretation to develop broader theories about psychology, we need to show how dreams connect with other things our minds do.

If an Unconscious system truly exists (or something very much like it), then dreams can’t be its only way of expressing itself. Yes, every dream might be a wish-fulfillment. But there must be other kinds of “abnormal” wish-fulfillments besides dreams.

And indeed, the main theory about psychoneurotic symptoms (like those in neuroses) is that they, too, are wish-fulfillments coming from the Unconscious. This makes dreams just the first example in a series of mental products that are very important for psychiatrists to understand. Understanding this series could help solve many psychological puzzles in psychiatry.

A Key Difference in Hysterical Symptoms

However, these other types of wish-fulfillments, like hysterical symptoms, have an important feature that I haven’t clearly found in dreams yet.

From my research, I know that for a hysterical symptom to form, two different currents in our mental life must come together:

The symptom expresses a realized unconscious wish.
But, another wish from the Preconscious mind must also join in and be fulfilled by the same symptom.

So, the symptom is determined by at least two forces, one from each of these conflicting mental systems (Unconscious and Preconscious). And just like in dreams, there can be even more factors contributing to it (over-determination).

The part of the symptom that doesn’t come from the Unconscious is almost always a line of thought that reacts against the unconscious wish. A common example is self-punishment.

In general, a hysterical symptom only appears when two opposing wish-fulfillments – one from the Unconscious and one from the Preconscious – can find a way to be expressed in a single outward sign.

An Example of a Hysterical Symptom

Brief examples aren’t very convincing without all the details, but here’s one to illustrate the idea. A patient experienced hysterical vomiting. Analysis showed this was, on one hand, the fulfillment of an unconscious fantasy from her teenage years: a wish to be constantly pregnant with many children from many different men. A strong mental defense had formed against this wild wish.

On the other hand, the vomiting was making her lose her looks, so no man would be interested in her. This outcome perfectly suited a self-punishing thought process in her Preconscious mind. Because the vomiting was acceptable to both these opposing sides, it could emerge as a symptom. This is a bit like an old story where a greedy king who wished for gold was “granted” his wish by having molten gold poured down his throat – a twisted fulfillment.

What About Dreams?

So far, what we know about dreams is that they express a wish-fulfillment from the Unconscious. It seems the dominant Preconscious system allows this, but only after it has forced the dream to be distorted or disguised.

In general, we don’t clearly see a preconscious thought that opposes the dream-wish also being fulfilled within the dream itself. We do occasionally find signs of “reaction formations” in dream analysis (like my dream showing affection for my friend R, which might have been a reaction against a different, opposite feeling).

However, the missing preconscious element in dreams can be found somewhere else. After the unconscious wish goes through all sorts of distortions, the dream is allowed to express it. Meanwhile, the dominant Preconscious system has focused on its own wish: the wish to sleep. It fulfills this wish by adjusting energy levels in the mind. And it holds onto this wish to sleep for as long as we are actually asleep.

The Preconscious Wish to Sleep and Dream Formation

This strong desire of the Preconscious mind to keep sleeping usually makes it easier for dreams to happen.

Think about the dream of the father whose child had died. He saw a light from the child’s room and dreamed the child was alive, asking why he wasn’t by his side, as the body was catching fire. We suggested that one mental reason for the father having this dream, instead of just waking up from the light, was the wish to extend the child’s life in the dream, even for a moment. There are probably other repressed wishes at play that we can’t analyze without more information.

But we can also see the father’s need for sleep as a second driving force for this dream. Just as the dream makes the child seem alive a little longer, it also makes the father’s sleep last a little longer. His underlying thought was, “Let the dream continue, because otherwise, I’ll have to wake up.”

Just like in this father’s dream, the wish to sleep supports the unconscious wish in all other dreams too. We’ve talked before about dreams that are obviously dreams of convenience (like dreaming you’re drinking when you’re thirsty). Really, all dreams could be called dreams of convenience in this sense – they serve the convenience of continuing to sleep.

How the Wish to Sleep Protects Sleep

We can see how effective this wish to keep sleeping is, especially in dreams we have just as we are about to be woken up. These dreams often take an external sound or feeling and weave it into the dream’s story. By doing this, the dream makes the stimulus compatible with staying asleep. It removes the stimulus’s power to remind us of the outside world and wake us.

However, this wish to sleep must also play a part in allowing all those other dreams – even the ones that might try to wake us up by becoming too disturbing from the inside. When a dream gets too intense or upsetting, the Preconscious mind often seems to send a message to our awareness: “Don’t worry! It’s just a dream. Go on sleeping.”

This reassurance helps us dismiss the dream’s troubling content and continue to sleep.

This thought, “After all, it’s only a dream,” is a good way to describe how the main part of our mind generally views dreams, even if we don’t actually say the words.

Because of this, I have to conclude something important: throughout the entire time we are asleep, we know we are dreaming just as surely as we know we are asleep.

Some might argue against this. They might say that our conscious mind is never really focused on the fact that we’re asleep. And they might say we only become aware that we’re dreaming on certain occasions, like when our mental censorship is momentarily caught off guard. However, we don’t need to give much weight to this objection.

Waking Up from Dreams, the Purpose of Dreams, and Anxiety Dreams

Now that we understand the Preconscious mind wants to sleep throughout the night, we can look at the dreaming process more clearly. But first, let’s recap what we know so far about how a dream starts.

Something is leftover from our waking life – a day’s residue. This residue might still have some mental energy attached to it that doesn’t go away at night.
Alternatively, our activities during the day might have stirred up one of our unconscious wishes.
Or, both of these things might happen together. (We’ve already talked about these different possibilities).

So, either an unconscious wish was already moving towards these day’s residues during the daytime, or this connection only happens once we fall asleep. When we’re asleep, the unconscious wish transfers its energy and meaning onto these recent day’s residues.

This creates a new wish that is now linked to recent material. Or, it could be that a recent wish we had suppressed gets new life and strength from the Unconscious.

This newly formed or energized wish then tries to reach our conscious awareness. It attempts to follow the normal path that thoughts take, which is through the Preconscious mind.

However, it runs into the censorship barrier, which is still active even in sleep. The censorship influences the wish, forcing it into a disguised or distorted form. This distortion was already partly set up when the wish transferred its energy to recent events.

At this stage, the wish is on its way to becoming something like an obsessive thought, an illusion, or a similar idea. It’s a thought that has been:

Strengthened by the transference of unconscious energy.
Distorted in how it’s expressed because of censorship.

But because we are asleep, the Preconscious mind doesn’t let this thought-process go any further in the usual way. The Preconscious system has likely protected itself by reducing its own level of excitement.

So, the dreaming process now takes a different route: regression. This means it goes backward. This backward path is open because of the state of sleep. As it travels this path, the dream-material is pulled towards groups of memories. Some of these memories are charged only with visual intensity; they haven’t been put into words or the more advanced ways our mind organizes thoughts.

On its way backward through regression, the dream material gains representability – it becomes something that can be pictured or imagined as a scene. (We will discuss another process called compression later.)

The dreaming process has now completed the second part of its winding journey:

Part 1 (Forward): From unconscious scenes or fantasies towards the Preconscious.
Part 2 (Backward/Regression): From the edge of censorship back towards raw perceptions (like seeing or hearing).

Once the dream-process turns into a perception (like an inner image or sound), it has essentially dodged the roadblocks that the Preconscious mind had set up – namely, censorship and the general quietness of the sleep state. Now, it can grab the attention of consciousness and be noticed.

Consciousness, which we can think of as a sense organ for noticing mental qualities, can be activated from two directions when we are awake:

Primarily, from the perceptual system – the information coming from our senses about the outside world.
Also, from feelings of pleasure and unpleasure. These are the only mental qualities that arise directly from the movement of energy within our minds.

All other mental processes, even those in the Preconscious, don’t have this special “psychical quality.” So, they don’t directly enter our conscious awareness unless they create a feeling of pleasure or unpleasure that our consciousness can perceive. We have to assume that these feelings of pleasure and unpleasure automatically guide how mental energy is distributed.

However, for the mind to work with more precision, it became necessary for thoughts to develop in a way that was more independent of just avoiding unpleasure. To achieve this, the Preconscious system needed its own qualities that could attract consciousness. It likely got these qualities by connecting preconscious thoughts with the memory system for language – for words and linguistic signs – because words themselves have noticeable qualities.

Through this connection with language, consciousness, which was initially just a sense organ for external perceptions, also became a sense organ for some of our internal thought processes. So now, consciousness has, in a way, two “sensory surfaces”:

One turned towards perceiving the outside world.
The other turned towards perceiving our own thoughts.

I believe that during sleep, the “sensory surface” of our consciousness that faces our Preconscious thoughts becomes much less easily excited. It’s less sensitive than the surface that faces our external perceptual systems (our senses like sight and hearing).

Of course, there’s a good reason for our mind to lose interest in active thinking at night: nothing is supposed to be happening in our thoughts because the Preconscious mind wants to sleep.

However, once the dream has transformed into a perception (an image or scene), it can use the qualities it now possesses to awaken consciousness. This stimulation of our inner “senses” does what it’s meant to do: it makes a part of the energy resting in the Preconscious pay attention to what’s causing the stimulation.

So, we have to acknowledge that a dream always rouses us to some extent. It activates a part of the mental force that was resting in the Preconscious.

The dream then goes through what we’ve called secondary revision. This is a process that tries to make the dream more logical, understandable, and coherent. In other words, the mind treats the dream like any other piece of perceptual information: it tries to make sense of the dream’s ideas, applying the usual expectations for meaning, as much as the dream’s strange content allows.

The direction of this third part of the dream-process is, once again, a forward (progressive) one.

How Long Does Dreaming Take?

To avoid confusion, it’s probably a good idea to say something about how much time these dream processes actually take.

An interesting idea was proposed by Goblot. He was likely thinking about the puzzling guillotine dream reported by Maury (where a complex dream seemed to happen in the instant before waking). Goblot tried to show that dreams only take up the very short period when we are transitioning from being asleep to being awake. He argued that waking up takes a little time, and the dream happens during this interval.

In Goblot’s view, the last image of the dream was so powerful that it forced the sleeper to wake up. But another way to see it is that the image only seemed so strong because, at that point, we were already very close to waking up anyway. As the saying goes, “A dream is a waking that begins.”

Dugas has already pointed out that for Goblot’s theory to hold true for all dreams, a lot of conflicting facts have to be ignored. For instance, there are dreams that don’t wake us up at all, like many dreams where we dream that we are dreaming.

Based on what we know about the dream-work (all the mental processes involved in creating a dream), we cannot agree that it only happens during the brief time we are waking up.

On the contrary, it’s much more likely that:

The first part of the dream-work (the initial formation of the dream wish) actually starts during the day, when our Preconscious mind is still in charge.
The second part of the dream-work – which includes the changes made by censorship, the pull from unconscious scenes, and the breakthrough to becoming a perception – probably continues throughout the entire night.
- So, when we say we’ve been “dreaming all night long,” we might be right, even if we can’t remember what we dreamed.

However, I don’t believe that the different stages of the dream process happen in the exact step-by-step order we’ve described (first the wish, then distortion by censorship, then the move to regression, and so on). We had to present it that way to explain it clearly.

In reality, it’s probably more like the mind is trying out different paths at the same time. Mental energy flows back and forth until things finally settle into the most stable arrangement, which then becomes the dream.

Some of my own experiences lead me to think that the dream-work often needs more than just one day and one night to produce its final result. If that’s true, then the incredible skill and artistry we see in how dreams are constructed might seem a little less amazing because it takes so long.

In my opinion, even the part of the process that makes the dream understandable as a perception can happen before the dream has grabbed the attention of our consciousness. On the other hand, once consciousness does notice the dream, the process speeds up considerably. After all, the dream is then treated just like any other perception the mind processes.

It’s like a firework display: it takes hours to prepare, but then it lights up in a brilliant flash that lasts only a moment.

So, there are two main ways a dream can play out:

The dream-work manages to give the dream-process enough intensity to attract the attention of consciousness and stir the Preconscious mind. This can happen at any time during sleep, regardless of how deeply we are sleeping.
Or, the dream’s intensity isn’t strong enough for this. In that case, the dream has to stay “on standby,” ready to be noticed, until just before we naturally wake up. At that point, our attention becomes more easily shifted.

Most dreams seem to operate with fairly low levels of mental intensity. They appear to be “waiting” for the time of waking.

This also explains why we are usually aware of having dreamed something if we are suddenly jolted awake from a deep sleep. Whether we wake up naturally or are abruptly awakened, the first thing our mind “sees” is the perceptual content created by the dream-work. Only after that do we become aware of what’s happening in the outside world.

Why Some Dreams Wake Us Up

However, dreams that are strong enough to wake us up in the middle of our sleep are particularly interesting from a theoretical standpoint.

We know that sleep itself is the fulfillment of the Preconscious mind’s wish to rest. So, we might ask: why does a dream – which is the fulfillment of an unconscious wish – still have the power to disturb sleep?

The answer must involve the balance of mental energies, something we don’t fully understand yet. If we did understand it, we would probably find that allowing a dream to run its course, and paying a certain amount of detached attention to it, actually saves mental energy. It might be less effort than trying to keep the Unconscious mind under the same tight control at night as we do during the day.

Our experience shows that dreaming is compatible with sleep, even if it interrupts our sleep several times in one night. We wake up for a moment and then go right back to sleep. It’s like when we’re asleep and a fly bothers us: we might wake up just enough to brush it away and then fall back asleep, having dealt with the disturbance.

Fulfilling the wish to sleep can also go along with paying a certain amount of attention in a specific direction. Think of a nursing mother who sleeps but remains alert to her baby’s sounds.

A Challenge: Why Don’t Disturbing Dreams Keep Repeating?

At this point, an objection arises, based on a better understanding of how unconscious processes work. We’ve said that unconscious wishes are constantly alive and active. Even so, during the day, they usually aren’t strong enough to make themselves clearly “heard” by our conscious mind.

But if, during sleep, an unconscious wish has enough power to form a dream and even stir the Preconscious mind with it, why does this power seem to fade away once we become aware of the dream? Shouldn’t the dream try to renew itself constantly? Shouldn’t it be like that annoying fly that keeps returning to the same spot after you’ve swatted it away?

What right do we have to claim that dreams actually get rid of any disturbance to our sleep, if the underlying wish is still active?

It’s absolutely true that unconscious wishes always stay alive and active. They are like pathways in the mind that are always open and can be used whenever a certain amount of mental energy flows into them. In fact, a key characteristic of unconscious processes is that they are indestructible. In the Unconscious, nothing is ever truly finished, nothing becomes truly past, and nothing is ever really forgotten.

We get the clearest sense of this when we study neuroses, especially hysteria. An unconscious pathway of thoughts that leads to an emotional outburst or attack can be used again immediately if enough mental excitement builds up. A painful experience from thirty years ago, if it has tapped into unconscious sources of emotion, will continue to act like a fresh wound for all those thirty years. Whenever the memory of that old injury is triggered, it springs back to life, full of emotional energy, which then gets released in some kind of physical or emotional reaction.

This is precisely where psychotherapy can help. Its job is to work with these unconscious processes, to resolve them, and to make it possible for the mind to move past them or “forget” them in a healthy way.

Actually, what we often think of as the natural fading of memories over time – memories waning or impressions losing their intensity – are not just passive processes. They are often the result of hard work done by the mind. It is the Preconscious mind that performs this work of processing and subduing. The only way psychotherapy can work is by helping the Preconscious mind gain authority over the Unconscious.

So, for any particular build-up of unconscious mental energy, there are two possible results:

It’s left to itself: If this happens, the energy will eventually break out somewhere. For that one time, it will discharge its excitement through some kind of action or symptom.
It’s influenced by the Preconscious: In this case, the Preconscious mind “binds” the energy instead of letting it just vent uncontrollably.

Dreaming is an example of this second outcome. When a dream becomes a perception and rouses consciousness, energy from the Preconscious is directed towards the dream. This preconscious energy then “binds” the unconscious energy within the dream. This binding process neutralizes the dream’s power to disturb our sleep further.

So, if the dreamer wakes up for a moment, they really have “brushed away the fly” that threatened their sleep. The disturbance has been handled.

We can now see that it was actually more convenient and energy-efficient for the mind to:

Let the unconscious wish run its course, allowing it to travel backward (regress) and form a dream.
And then, deal with that dream by using a small amount of preconscious mental work to bind its energy. This is less costly than trying to keep a tight lid on the Unconscious throughout the entire night, as well as during the day.

It was predictable that even if dreaming didn’t start out as a process with a specific purpose, it would eventually find a useful function within the complex workings of the mind.

The True Function of Dreams

And now we can see what that function is. Dreaming has taken on the job of bringing the freely roaming excitement from the Unconscious back under the control of the Preconscious. In doing this, dreaming:

Discharges the pent-up energy of the Unconscious, acting like a safety valve.
At the same time, it protects the sleep of the Preconscious mind, in return for a small amount of “waking” mental activity (the work of secondary revision and binding the dream).

In this way, a dream acts as a compromise. Like other mental creations, it serves both the Unconscious and Preconscious systems at the same time. It fulfills the wishes of both, as long as those wishes are compatible with each other.

If we look back at Robert’s “excretion theory” of dreams (the idea that dreams get rid of harmful mental material), we have to admit he was on the right track regarding the main point about the function of dreams – that they serve a protective or regulatory purpose. However, our current understanding of the assumptions and the actual dream-process differs from his.

The phrase “as long as the wishes are compatible with each other” hints that there can be times when the dream’s function doesn’t quite work out.

The dreaming process begins as an attempt to fulfill an unconscious wish. But if this attempted wish-fulfillment is so strong or shocking that it violently disturbs the Preconscious mind, the Preconscious can no longer maintain its state of rest (sleep). When this happens, the dream has broken the compromise. It no longer fulfills the second part of its job, which is to protect sleep.

If this occurs, the dream is immediately cut short, and the person wakes up fully.

In this situation, it’s not really the dream’s “fault” that it ends up being a disturber of sleep instead of its guardian. This doesn’t mean that dreams are unsuited for their usual purpose. This isn’t the only example in our bodies where a usually helpful system can become unhelpful or even disruptive if the conditions under which it operates change. In such cases, the disturbance itself at least serves a new purpose: it signals that something has changed and calls the body’s regulatory systems into action to deal with it.

I am, of course, thinking here about anxiety dreams. So as not to seem like I’m avoiding evidence that might appear to contradict the theory of wish-fulfillment, I want to offer some suggestions towards explaining anxiety dreams.

By now, we no longer see it as a contradiction that a mental process that produces anxiety can still, for that very reason, be a form of wish-fulfillment.

Here’s how we can understand this:

The wish itself belongs to one system – the Unconscious mind.
However, the Preconscious system has rejected and suppressed this particular wish.

Even when someone is perfectly mentally healthy, their Unconscious mind is never completely under the control of their Preconscious mind. The extent to which the Unconscious is suppressed is a measure of our psychological normality.

The symptoms of neurosis clearly show us that these two systems (Unconscious and Preconscious) are in conflict with each other. These symptoms are the compromise solutions that result from this conflict, temporarily ending the struggle. On one hand, neurotic symptoms allow the Unconscious an outlet to release its built-up energy; they act like a secret escape route. On the other hand, they still give the Preconscious a way to maintain some control over the Unconscious.

It’s helpful to consider the meaning of a hysterical phobia, like agoraphobia (an intense fear of open spaces or crowds, which might make someone unable to cross a street alone). We rightly call this inability a “symptom.” Now, imagine we try to eliminate this symptom by forcing the person to do the very thing they believe they cannot do (like cross the street alone). If we do this, the result is usually an anxiety attack. In fact, an anxiety attack experienced in the street has often been the original trigger for agoraphobia to develop.

In this way, we learn that the symptom (the phobia) was actually created to prevent the outbreak of anxiety. The phobia acts like a defensive fortress built to protect against the feared anxiety.

So, let’s suggest that this suppression of the Unconscious is essential. Why? Because if ideas in the Unconscious were left on their own, they would create an emotion. This emotion might have originally been linked to pleasure. But because of the process of repression (pushing thoughts down and out of awareness), this emotion now leads to unpleasure.

The main goal of suppression – and also its result – is to stop this feeling of unpleasure from developing. Suppression reaches deep into the content of the ideas in the Unconscious, because the release of unpleasure could start from those very ideas.

This view is based on a specific theory about how emotions develop. This theory sees emotions as being expressed through our body’s systems (like muscle movements or gland secretions). The trigger for these emotional expressions is thought to lie in the imagined ideas within the Unconscious.

The Preconscious mind’s control over these ideas is like it’s “strangling” them. This stops them from sending out the impulses that would normally develop into an emotion.

If this controlling energy from the Preconscious stops, there’s a danger. The unconscious excitements could then release an emotion. And because this emotion was previously suppressed, it can now only be felt as unpleasure, specifically as anxiety.

This danger of releasing anxiety becomes real if the dream process is allowed to unfold under certain conditions. For this to happen:

Repressions must have already occurred in the person’s mind.
The suppressed wishful impulses must be strong enough to push through.

These conditions are actually separate from the basic psychological mechanics of how dreams are formed.

If it weren’t for one specific connection – the fact that the Unconscious is “freed up” during sleep, which links our topic of dreams to how anxiety develops – I could avoid discussing anxiety dreams altogether. This would save me from having to deal with all the complicated and unclear issues surrounding them.

As I’ve mentioned many times, the full theory of anxiety dreams really belongs to the study of neuroses (the psychology of emotional difficulties). We don’t need to go further into it here, now that we’ve pointed out where it connects with our main topic: the process of dreaming.

However, there is one more thing I can do. Since I have consistently argued that neurotic anxiety comes from sexual sources, I can analyze some anxiety dreams. The purpose would be to highlight the sexual material present in the dream-thoughts (the hidden meanings behind the dream).

I have good reasons for not using any of the many examples that my patients with neuroses could provide. Instead, I will choose to discuss anxiety dreams experienced by young people.

An Example: My Own Childhood Anxiety Dream

I haven’t had a true anxiety dream myself for many decades. However, I recall one from when I was seven or eight years old. I analyzed this dream about thirty years later.

It was a very vivid dream. In it, I saw my beloved mother. Her face had a distinctively calm, sleeping expression. Two (or possibly three) figures with birds’ beaks were carrying her into the room and laying her on the bed. I woke up crying and screaming, which woke up my parents.

The strange, long figures with birds’ beaks came from illustrations in a Bible I knew. I believe they were gods with falcons’ heads, similar to those seen on Egyptian tomb carvings.

The analysis of this dream also brought back a memory. It was of a boy who didn’t behave well, the son of our building’s caretaker. He used to play with us children in the field near our house. I think his name might have been Philipp. I have a feeling that it was from this boy that I first heard a common, crude word for sexual intercourse. Educated people often use a more formal Latin-based word like ‘coition.’ The choice of bird or falcon heads in the dream seems to hint at this crude word, given its slang meaning in some languages. I must have figured out the sexual meaning of the word from the knowing look on this boy’s face.

The peaceful, sleeping expression on my mother’s face in the dream was copied from how my grandfather looked. I had seen him snoring deeply, in a coma-like state, a few days before he died.

So, the initial interpretation I made of the dream when I tried to make sense of it (the secondary revision) must have been that my mother was dying. The image of the Egyptian tomb figures also fit with this idea.

I woke up full of anxiety and didn’t stop crying until I had woken my parents. I remember calming down suddenly when I saw my mother. It was as if I needed to be reassured that she wasn’t dead after all.

However, this interpretation of the dream (that my mother was dying) was already shaped by the anxiety I was feeling. It wasn’t that I was anxious because I dreamed my mother was dying. Instead, I interpreted the dream in that particular way because I was already under the influence of anxiety.

But the anxiety itself could be traced back, through the process of repression, to a hidden and obviously sexual desire. This desire had found a fitting way to be expressed in the visual images of the dream.

Another Example: The Man with the Hatchet Dream

A twenty-seven-year-old man, who had been very ill for a year, reported having several anxiety dreams between the ages of eleven and thirteen. He dreamed that a man with a hatchet was chasing him. He wanted to run away but felt paralyzed and couldn’t move. This is probably a good example of a very common type of anxiety dream, one that might seem to have no sexual connection at first glance.

During analysis, the dreamer first recalled a story about his uncle that he heard later in life. His uncle had been attacked in the street at night by a suspicious person. From this, the dreamer guessed that he might have heard about a similar incident around the time he was having the dreams.

The hatchet in the dream reminded him that he had once accidentally hurt himself with a hatchet while chopping firewood.

Then, his thoughts turned directly to his relationship with his younger brother. He remembered that he used to treat his brother badly and hit him. He recalled one particular time when he kicked his brother in the head with his boot. The kick made his brother bleed, and their mother cried out, “I’m afraid he’ll kill him one day!”

While he was focused on this theme of violence, another memory suddenly came to him from when he was nine years old. His parents had come home late one night and gone to bed while he pretended to be asleep. He heard panting and other sounds that seemed strange and unsettling to him. He could also guess how his parents were positioned in bed.

His further thoughts revealed that he had drawn a parallel between what his parents were doing and his own violent behavior towards his younger brother. He understood what was happening between his parents as a form of “violence” or “fighting.” As a kind of “proof” for this mistaken idea, he remembered that he had often noticed blood in his mother’s bed.

It is, I would say, a common experience that when children happen to observe adults having sexual intercourse, it seems mysterious and unsettling to them. This often arouses anxiety in the child.

I have explained this anxiety as resulting from sexual excitement that the child’s understanding cannot yet handle. This excitement is also likely to be rejected or pushed away because it involves their parents. As a result, the excitement is transformed into anxiety.

At an earlier stage of a child’s life, stirrings of sexuality felt towards the parent of the opposite sex are not yet met with such strong repression. These feelings can express themselves more freely, as we have discussed before.

I have no doubt that this same explanation applies to what are known as night terrors (or pavor nocturnus). These are nighttime anxiety attacks, often accompanied by hallucinations, that many children experience. In these cases too, the cause can only be stirrings of sexuality that the child does not understand and therefore rejects.

If we kept records of these night terrors, they would probably also show a certain pattern or timing. This is because sexual energy (libido) can be intensified by chance experiences as well as by the natural, periodic bursts of development.

I don’t have enough direct observational data (empirical material) to fully prove this explanation. On the other hand, pediatricians often seem to be missing the particular viewpoint that would allow them to understand these occurrences from both a physical and a mental perspective.

As an almost comical example of how close someone can get to understanding such cases and then, blinded by the narrow views of traditional medical thinking, walk right past the real explanation, I’d like to share a case I found. It comes from Debacker’s 1881 thesis on night terrors.

Debacker’s Case: The Boy and the Devil

A thirteen-year-old boy, who was not in good health, started to become timid and withdrawn. His sleep grew restless. Almost every week, it was interrupted by a severe anxiety attack involving hallucinations.

His memory of these dreams was always very clear. He could describe how the devil had shouted at him, “Now we’ve got you, now we’ve got you!” Then, he would smell sulfur and brimstone, and feel fire burning his skin.

He would wake from this dream in terror. At first, he wouldn’t be able to cry out. But then, after finding his voice, he would be heard saying clearly: “No, no, not me, I haven’t done anything!” or, “Please, don’t. I’ll never do it again.” Sometimes he would also say, “Albert didn’t do that.” Later, he started to avoid getting undressed because he believed “the fire would only get him if he was undressed.”

In the midst of these devil dreams, which were harming his health, he was sent to live in the countryside. He recovered there over a period of eighteen months. Then, when he was fifteen years old, he once confessed something important. He said (in French, but meaning): “I didn’t dare admit it, but I constantly felt tingling and over-excitement in my private parts. In the end, it unnerved me so much that several times I thought of throwing myself out of the dormitory window.”

My Interpretation of the Boy’s Case

It’s probably not hard to figure out what was really going on:

In his younger years, the boy had likely masturbated. He probably denied it and was threatened with severe punishments for this “bad habit.” (This fits with what he said in his sleep: “I’ll never do it again,” and his denial using a different name, “Albert didn’t do that,” suggesting he was trying to distance himself from the act).
During the emotional upheaval of puberty, the temptation to masturbate was reawakened by the “tingling and over-excitement in his private parts” that he described.
But now, a strong internal struggle (repression) broke out within him. This struggle suppressed his sexual energy (libido) and transformed it into anxiety. This anxiety then took the form of the punishments he had once been threatened with – the devil, the fire, and the feeling of being “got.”

Debacker’s Different Conclusion

Now, in contrast, let’s hear the conclusions that the medical authority, Debacker, drew from this case:

“We may conclude from these observations that:

The influence of puberty on a boy in weakened health can produce a state of great weakness. This can even go as far as causing a very significant lack of blood flow to the brain (cerebral anemia).
This lack of blood to the brain produces a change in the boy’s character. It also causes hallucinations about devils and intense states of anxiety at night, and perhaps also during the day.
The obsession with devils and the boy’s self-accusations come from the effects of his religious upbringing, which influenced him as a child.
As a result of a fairly long stay in the countryside, physical exercise, and regaining his strength at the end of puberty, all these symptoms disappeared.
Perhaps we can attribute the child’s tendency towards this brain condition to heredity and to his father having had syphilis earlier in life.”

Debacker’s final summary was (in French, meaning): “We have classified this observation within the framework of non-feverish deliriums caused by starvation or exhaustion, because it is to a lack of blood flow to the brain (cerebral ischemia) that we connect this particular state.”

(e) Primary and Secondary Process. Repression

As I go deeper into explaining the psychology of how dreams work, I’ve taken on a very difficult task. My skills at explaining things may not be quite up to it.

It’s hard to describe so many complicated, interconnected ideas one after another, in a straight line. It’s also challenging to make sure that each new point I make doesn’t seem to depend on assumptions I haven’t explained yet. This task might be beyond my abilities.

I realize now that in explaining dream psychology, I can’t really follow the historical order in which I gained my own understanding. My understanding of dreams came from my earlier work on the psychology of neuroses. I shouldn’t really use that work as a starting point here. Yet, I will have to refer to it again and again as I work in the opposite direction: starting with dreams and trying to connect them to the psychology of neuroses.

I know this approach will cause many difficulties for the reader, but I don’t see how to avoid them.

Even though I’m not entirely happy with how I have to present these ideas, I do want to focus on something that I believe makes my work valuable. As I mentioned at the start of this book, the topic of dreams was full of sharply conflicting opinions from different experts.

My way of looking at the problems raised by dreams has managed to find a place for most of these contradictions. There were only two views that I had to strongly argue against:

The idea that dreams have no meaning at all.
The idea that dreaming is purely a physical process in the body.

Otherwise, I’ve been able to show that many of these conflicting opinions were actually right about certain points. They had each discovered a piece of the truth within these complex relationships.

Reconciling Different Views on Dream Content

By uncovering the hidden dream-thoughts, we’ve generally confirmed that dreams do continue the motivations and interests of our waking lives. Dream-thoughts are only concerned with things that seem important and deeply interesting to us. In this sense, dreams are never about trivial matters.

However, we’ve also agreed with the opposite view: that dreams do pick up on the rejected, unimportant little things from our day. A dream won’t usually take on a major interest from the day until that interest has somewhat faded from our active waking thoughts. We found this to be true for the dream-content – the surface story of the dream – which expresses the dream-thoughts in a distorted way.

Why does the dreaming process use recent or unimportant material?

For reasons of mental mechanics: It’s easier for the dreaming process to grab hold of fresh or unimportant ideas that our waking thoughts haven’t already “claimed.”
For reasons of censorship: The dreaming process transfers emotional intensity away from what is truly important (but perhaps also unacceptable) onto things that seem insignificant.

Key Elements of This Dream Theory

The exceptional memory shown in dreams (hypermnesia) and their access to childhood material have become two main pillars of my theory. My theory of dreams states that wishes coming from childhood are the essential driving force behind dream formation.

Of course, I don’t doubt the importance of external sensory stimuli during sleep, which has been shown in experiments. However, I see this material as playing the same role relative to the dream-wish as the leftover thoughts from our day’s activities.

I also don’t dispute that dreams interpret real sensory stimuli as if they were illusions. But where other experts left the reason for this interpretation unclear, I have provided one. The interpretation happens in such a way that the perceived object or sensation loses its power to disturb our sleep. Instead, it becomes available for the purpose of fulfilling a wish.

It’s true that I don’t accept the idea (which seemed to be demonstrated by researchers like Trumbull Ladd) that spontaneous excitations in our sense organs during sleep are a special source of dreams. However, I can explain these as the backward (regressive) reawakening of memories that are working behind the dream.

Internal physical sensations – like feelings of falling, floating, or being unable to move – which some see as the main explanation for dreams, also keep their place in my view, but in a more limited role. I believe these sensations are simply material that is always available for the dream-work to use. The dream can use them to express its underlying thoughts whenever needed.

More Contradictions Resolved

The idea that the dreaming process is quick and happens in an instant seems true for how our consciousness perceives the already-formed dream content. However, we’ve found it more likely that the earlier stages of the dream-process unfold slowly and gradually.

Regarding the puzzle of how a dream can be packed with so many ideas yet seem to happen in a very brief moment, we were able to add an explanation: these are cases where the dream uses complex structures of thought that are already formed and present in our minds.

We agreed that dreams are distorted and changed by memory. But we didn’t see this as a problem, because this is only the final, visible part of a distortion process that has been at work since the very beginning of the dream’s formation.

The Mind in Sleep: Active or Resting?

In the heated and seemingly unresolvable debate about whether our inner mental life sleeps at night or remains fully active as it is during the day, we were able to say that both sides were partly right, but neither was entirely correct.

We found evidence in dream-thoughts of highly complicated intellectual activity, using almost all the tools of our mental apparatus.
However, it still cannot be denied that these dream-thoughts originated during the daytime. And it’s essential to assume that there is indeed a “state of sleep” for our inner mental life.

This is how even the theory of “partial sleep” found its place. But we found that the state of sleep is not defined by a breakdown of mental connections. Instead, it’s characterized by the mental system that controls our waking day focusing on the wish to sleep.

The withdrawal of our attention from the external world also remained important in our understanding of dreams. Although it’s not the only factor, it helps make the backward-looking (regressive) way that dreams represent things possible.

There’s no argument that the voluntary, conscious direction of our flow of ideas is given up during sleep. But this doesn’t mean our mental life becomes purposeless. As we’ve discussed, once voluntary purposes are set aside, involuntary purposes take over.

Associations, Absurdity, and Function

We have not only acknowledged that dreams use loose associative connections, but we have shown that these connections play a much larger role than anyone suspected. However, we also discovered that these loose connections are merely substitutes that are imposed in place of other, more direct and meaningful, associations.

Certainly, we too have called dreams absurd. But we learned from examples just how clever a dream can be when it is only pretending to be absurd.

Finally, we don’t disagree with the functions that others have attributed to dreams.

The idea that the dream acts like a safety valve, allowing the mind to “let off steam.”
And Robert’s idea that, by imagining harmful things in a dream, they are made harmless.
- These notions not only fit perfectly with my theory of the dream’s double wish-fulfillment (serving both Unconscious and Preconscious wishes), but they also become easier to understand within my theory than in Robert’s original formulation.

The idea of the mind enjoying the free play of its abilities can also be found in my theory, particularly in the way the Preconscious activity allows the dream to run its course.

Some thinkers have expressed ideas that happily line up with my own arguments. For example, the idea of our inner life “returning to an embryonic point of view in dreams.” Or the description of dreams as “an ancient world of huge emotions and incomplete thought,” by Havelock Ellis. These descriptions seem to anticipate my view that primitive ways of mental working, which are suppressed during the day, play a part in forming dreams. And, like another researcher, Delage, I also see “the suppressed” – that is, repressed thoughts and feelings – as the main driving force behind dreaming.

The Role of Imagination and Day’s Unconscious Activity

I fully recognize the role that the researcher Schemer gave to dream imagination, as well as his interpretations. However, I’ve had to place his ideas in a slightly different context within the overall problem of dreams.

It’s not that the dream creates imagination. Instead, it’s the unconscious activity of our imagination that plays the biggest part in forming the dream-thoughts (the underlying ideas and wishes behind the dream).

I am still grateful to Schemer for drawing attention to where dream-thoughts come from. However, almost everything he attributed to the dream-work (the process that transforms hidden thoughts into the dream story) should actually be credited to the activity of the Unconscious mind during the day. This daytime unconscious activity provides the driving force for dreams, just as it does for neurotic symptoms.

I had to distinguish the dream-work itself as something quite different and much more specific than this general unconscious activity.

Finally, I certainly haven’t given up on the connection between dreams and mental or emotional disorders. Instead, I believe my work has placed this connection on a firmer and new foundation.

A New Contradiction in the Theory

What’s new in my theory of dreams is that it acts like a larger container. It holds together the most varied and conflicting conclusions of other writers. It includes them within its structure, though many are modified, and only a few are completely rejected.

However, my theoretical “building” is also still unfinished. Besides the many uncertainties that naturally come with exploring the darker, less understood areas of psychology, a fresh contradiction now seems to be pressing on us.

On one hand, we’ve said that dream-thoughts are created by completely normal mental activity. But on the other hand, we discovered several quite abnormal thought processes among these dream-thoughts. We traced the path from these abnormal processes to the actual dream-content (the dream as we remember it). We then revisit these abnormal processes when we interpret the dream.

Everything I have called the “dream-work” seems so different from the rational mental processes we are familiar with. This makes it seem that the harshest criticisms made by other authors about the low level of mental activity in dreaming are perfectly correct and justified.

At this stage, it might be that the only way to gain more help and understanding is to push even further into the subject. I will now focus on one particular set of circumstances that leads to the formation of a dream:

We’ve learned that a dream stands in for a number of thoughts. These thoughts come from our daily life and are connected in a perfectly logical way. This leaves no doubt that these thoughts start in our normal mental life. All the qualities we admire in our waking thought processes – their complexity and high level of organization – can also be found in these underlying dream-thoughts.

But we don’t need to assume that this smart intellectual work happens during sleep. That idea would badly confuse our current understanding of the mental state of sleep. Instead, these thoughts could very well come from the daytime. They might have started and continued without our conscious awareness, and they could have been fully formed by the time we fell asleep.

If we can learn anything from this, it’s that very complex thinking is possible without the involvement of consciousness. This is something we were bound to learn anyway from every psychoanalysis of a person with hysteria or obsessional thoughts.

These dream-thoughts are not, in themselves, incapable of becoming conscious. If they haven’t become conscious to us during the day, there could be several reasons:

Attention is limited: Becoming conscious is linked to using a specific mental function called attention. It seems we only have a certain amount of attention available. This attention might have been drawn away from the particular train of thought by other goals or activities.
Ideas are rejected: Another way such thoughts can be kept from consciousness is like this: When we consciously pay attention, we are following a specific path of thought. If we come across an idea on this path that doesn’t seem right or doesn’t hold up to criticism, we tend to stop focusing on it; we withdraw our attention.
- Now, it seems that a train of thought we started and then abandoned can continue to develop on its own, even if our attention is no longer on it. This can happen as long as the process doesn’t become so intense at some point that it forces our attention back to it.
- A line of thinking might be rejected right at the beginning, perhaps consciously, because we judge it to be wrong or useless for our current thinking task. It’s possible that this is why it continues to develop, unnoticed by consciousness, until we fall asleep.

Let’s summarize this. We call such a line of thinking preconscious. We see it as completely rational. It can be a line of thought that has simply been neglected, or one that has been interrupted or suppressed.

Let me also state clearly how I imagine a line of ideas proceeds. I believe that, starting from a purposive idea (an idea with a goal or intention), a certain amount of mental excitement – which I call charging energy – moves along pathways of associated ideas. The purposive idea selects these pathways.

A “neglected” line of thought is one that hasn’t received this charging energy.
A “suppressed” or “rejected” line of thought is one from which this energy has been withdrawn.
In both cases (neglected or suppressed), these thoughts are left with only their own low level of excitement.

A line of thought that has been purposefully charged with energy will, under certain conditions, be able to attract the attention of consciousness. Through consciousness acting as a go-between, it will then receive a kind of “supercharge” of energy. I will need to explain my assumptions about the nature and function of consciousness a little later.

A line of thought started in the Preconscious in this way can either fade away on its own, or it can manage to persist.

The first outcome – fading away – happens if the energy of that line of thought spreads out in all the different directions of associated ideas. This briefly excites the entire chain of thoughts. But then it fades away, as the excitement that needed to be released is transformed into a calm, inactive (quiescent) charge. If this happens, the process has no further importance for forming dreams.

However, there are other purposive ideas hiding in our Preconscious. These come from the source of our unconscious and always-active wishes. These unconscious wish-ideas can:

Take over the excitement in the area of thoughts that were left to themselves.
Create a connection between these thoughts and an unconscious wish.
Transfer the energy belonging to that unconscious wish onto these thoughts.

From this point on, the neglected or suppressed line of thought is able to survive and maintain itself. However, this boost of energy from the unconscious wish does not give it the right to be admitted into consciousness. We can say that this line of thought, which was preconscious until now, has been pulled into the Unconscious.

Other situations that can lead to a dream forming could be:

If, from the very beginning, a preconscious line of thought was linked with an unconscious wish. Because of this link, it might have been rejected by the main, goal-oriented energy of the Preconscious.
Or, if an unconscious wish became active for other reasons (perhaps physical, bodily causes). This wish might then look to transfer its energy onto leftover mental traces (psychical residues) that are not currently energized by the Preconscious and are not actively trying to connect with anything.

All three of these situations ultimately have the same result: a line of thought exists in the Preconscious. This line of thought has been abandoned by the normal preconscious energy charge, but it receives a new charge of energy from an unconscious wish.

From this point onward, this energized line of thought goes through a series of changes. We no longer recognize these changes as normal mental processes. They produce a disturbing result – a formation that resembles something seen in psychological disorders (a psychopathological formation).

Let’s identify these processes and list them.

1. Condensation: Packing Meaning into Single Elements

First, the emotional energies (intensities) of the individual ideas become capable of being discharged. These energies can pass from one idea to another. As a result, certain individual ideas are formed that are packed with great intensity.

Through repeated rounds of this process, the intensity of an entire line of thought can eventually be concentrated into just one of its parts. This is the process of compression, or condensation, which we learned about when we discussed the dream-work.

Condensation is mostly responsible for the disturbing and strange impression that dreams often make on us. This is because we are not familiar with anything like it in our normal, conscious mental life. In our waking thoughts, we also have ideas that are very psychologically important – perhaps because they are key connecting points or the final outcome of long chains of thought. However, their importance is not usually expressed by making the idea itself seem more intense to our inner perception. The significance of an idea doesn’t automatically make its mental presentation stronger or louder.

In the process of condensation, however, all the mental connections between ideas are converted into the intensity of the dream element’s content.

It’s like if I were printing a book and wanted to highlight a word I thought was crucial for understanding the text. I might print that word in italics or bold.
If I were speaking, I would say that word loudly, slowly, and with emphasis. The printing comparison directly reminds us of examples from the dream-work, like the word “Trimethylamine” in the dream about Irma’s injection.

Art historians point out that the oldest historical sculptures used a similar principle. They showed the rank and importance of people by their size in the sculpture. The king, for example, would be sculpted two or three times bigger than his attendants or his defeated enemies. A sculpture from Roman times would use more subtle methods for the same purpose. It might place the Emperor’s figure in the center, show him raised up high, and model his figure with particular care, while his enemies lie at his feet. But he would no longer appear as a giant among dwarfs. Even so, the way people today bow to a superior is a distant echo of that ancient principle of representation.

What Guides Condensation?

The direction that condensation takes in a dream is determined by two main things:

The logical, preconscious relationships between the underlying dream-thoughts.
The pull or attraction of visual memories stored in the Unconscious.

The main goal of condensation is to create those levels of intensity that are needed for the dream material to break through to our perceptual systems – that is, to be seen, heard, or felt in the dream.

2. Compromise Formations: Blending Ideas

Second, because these emotional intensities can be freely transferred from one idea to another, new “in-between” ideas are created. These are like compromises between different thoughts (we’ve seen many examples). This process also helps with condensation.

This kind of blending is also something unheard of in our normal way of processing ideas. In normal thinking, what’s most important is to select and hold onto the “correct” or most logical element among different thoughts.

By contrast, these combined and compromise formations happen very often when we are trying to find the right words to express our preconscious thoughts. These are often seen in various kinds of “slips of the tongue.”

3. Loose Associations: Connecting Unrelated Ideas

Third, the ideas that transfer their intensities to each other often have only the loosest connections between them. They are linked by types of associations that our normal, logical thinking would dismiss. These kinds of associations are usually only used to create a humorous or comic effect.

In particular, connections based on wordplay, like puns or similarities in sound, are treated as being just as valid and important as any other kind of association.

4. Contradictions Coexist

Fourth, thoughts that contradict each other do not try to cancel each other out, as they would in logical thinking. Instead, they continue to exist side by side.

Often, these contradictory thoughts combine as if there were no contradiction at all, forming parts of a condensed dream image. Or, they form compromises – solutions that we would never allow our logical thinking to make, but which we might sometimes accept or even approve of in our actions in real life.

These are some of the most noticeable of the abnormal processes that the dream-thoughts, which originally had a rational form, go through during the dream-work.

As we can see, their main feature is the high importance given to making the charge of mental energy mobile and capable of being discharged. The actual content and the proper meaning of the mental elements that carry this energy become secondary or unimportant.

One might still think that condensation and the formation of compromises happen only to help achieve regression – that is, if it’s about transforming thoughts into images. However, the analysis of dreams (and even more clearly, the process of putting dream elements back together during interpretation) reveals something important. Even dreams that don’t rely on regression into images – for example, the dream “Autodidasker—conversation with Professor N.” – show the very same processes of displacement and condensation as all other dreams.

So, we cannot deny this key insight: two essentially different kinds of mental processes are involved in forming dreams.

One process creates perfectly rational dream-thoughts, which are just as valid as normal thinking.
The other process treats these rational thoughts in a most disturbing and irrational way.

We have already identified this second process in Chapter VI as the true dream-work. Now, what can we say about where this second, irrational mental process comes from?

We wouldn’t be able to answer this question if we hadn’t already explored the psychology of neuroses, especially hysteria. From studying hysteria, we learn that the very same irrational mental processes (and others I haven’t listed here) are in control when hysterical symptoms are produced.

In cases of hysteria, too, we first discover a set of completely rational thoughts underlying the symptoms. These thoughts are just as valid as our conscious thoughts. However, we usually can’t find any direct evidence of their existence in this rational form; we can only reconstruct them later, looking back.

If these normal thoughts do manage to break through to our awareness in some way (as symptoms), our analysis shows that they have undergone an abnormal kind of treatment. Through condensation, compromise-formation, superficial associations, hidden contradictions, and possibly by traveling the path of regression, these rational thoughts have been transformed into the symptoms.

Given this complete match between the characteristics of the dream-work and the characteristics of the mental activity that produces psychoneurotic symptoms, I believe we are justified in applying the conclusions that hysteria forces us to make to the study of dreams as well.

From the theory of hysteria, we take this key idea: a normal line of thought undergoes this kind of abnormal mental processing only if an unconscious wish, originating in infancy and currently in a state of repression, has transferred its energy to it.

It is for the sake of this principle that I have built my theory of dreams on the assumption that the wish motivating a dream always comes from the Unconscious. As I’ve admitted, this assumption cannot be proven to apply universally to all dreams, though it also cannot be disproven.

But to be able to explain what “repression” actually is – a term we’ve used so often – we will need to continue building our psychological model for a little longer.

Building the Psychological Model: Early Mental Functioning

We previously considered a simplified model, a “fiction,” of a primitive mental apparatus. Its main activity was governed by trying to avoid any build-up of excitement and to keep itself as free from excitement as possible. That’s why it was imagined as being built like a simple reflex system. The ability to create movement, which initially provides a way to make changes within the body, was the main path it had for discharging energy.

We then discussed the mental consequences of the experience of satisfaction. At that point, we could have also included our second assumption: that a build-up of excitement (which can occur in various ways that don’t concern us right now) is felt as unpleasure. This feeling of unpleasure then puts the mental apparatus into action. The goal is to bring back the experience of satisfaction, because the reduction of excitement during satisfaction is felt as pleasure.

A flow of energy like this in the mental apparatus, starting from unpleasure and aiming for pleasure, is what we call a wish. We said that only a wish can set the apparatus in motion. The course of excitement within it is automatically regulated by perceptions of pleasure and unpleasure.

The very first form of wishing was perhaps a hallucinatory re-experiencing of the memory of satisfaction. However, this hallucination, unless it was maintained to the point of complete mental exhaustion, turned out to be ineffective. It couldn’t actually stop the underlying need or bring about the true pleasure that comes with real satisfaction.

This failure of simple hallucination made a second kind of mental activity necessary. In our model, this is the activity of a second system. This second system did not allow the energized memory (memory-charge) to go all the way to becoming a perception (a hallucination) and from there tie up the mind’s forces. Instead, it diverted the excitement caused by the need along an indirect path, a detour. By using voluntary movement, this indirect route ultimately changes the external world in such a way that a real perception of the satisfying object can be achieved.

Up to this point, we have been following our simplified diagram (schematic plan) of the mental apparatus. These two systems – the primitive one aiming for immediate discharge/hallucination, and the second one working through reality – are the early forms, the “germs,” of what we later identified as the Unconscious and Preconscious systems in the fully developed mind.

To be able to change the external world effectively through movement, the mind needs to:

Build up a large store of experiences in its memory systems.
Have a variety of firmly established connections (associations) between these memories, which can be called upon by different goal-oriented (purposive) ideas.

Let’s now take our assumptions a step further. The activity of this second system – which involves cautiously exploring options, sending out small amounts of energy, and then withdrawing them – requires two things:

On one hand, it needs to have all the material in memory freely available to it.
On the other hand, it would be an unnecessary waste of effort if it were to send huge amounts of energy along particular lines of thought, only for that energy to be discharged uselessly. This would reduce the amount of energy available for actually changing the external world.

Therefore, I propose that it is for the sake of efficiency that this second system manages to keep most of its energy charges in a quiet, inactive (quiescent) state. It uses only a smaller portion of energy for actual displacement – for shifting energy from one idea to another.

The precise mechanics of these processes are quite unknown to me. Anyone who wants to take these ideas seriously would need to look for similar processes (analogies) in physics. They would also need to find a way to visualize how this movement of energy happens during the excitation of nerve cells (neurones).

But I do want to emphasize my view:

The activity of the first mental system (let’s call it the ψ-system, representing the primary way of functioning) is aimed at freely releasing built-up excitement.
The second mental system stops this free release. It does this by sending out its own energy charges. This transforms the original charge into a quiet, inactive one, and probably even raises its overall level of controlled energy.

I am assuming, then, that the way excitement is discharged when it’s governed by the second system works under very different mechanical rules than when it’s governed by the first system.

Once the second system has finished its process of exploring thoughts, it also stops its work of holding back and damming up the excitement. It then allows this excitement to be released through physical movement or action.

The Unpleasure Principle and Repression

Some interesting ideas come up if we look at how this stopping of discharge by the second system relates to regulation by the unpleasure principle (the mind’s tendency to avoid unpleasure).

Let’s think about the opposite of the primary experience of satisfaction: the experience of an external shock or pain. Imagine a painful sensation hits the primitive mental apparatus. This will result in sudden, uncontrolled movements. These movements continue until one of them manages to get the apparatus away from the painful sensation. If the painful sensation returns, this process of trying to escape (like a flight movement) will immediately repeat, until the sensation disappears again.

But in this kind of painful situation, there will be no desire in the mind to recreate the perception of the source of pain through hallucination, or to intensify it in any way.

Instead, if this painful memory-image is somehow triggered, the primary mental apparatus will tend to abandon it right away. After all, any overflow of excitement from this painful memory would cause unpleasure (or, more accurately, would start to cause it).

Turning away from the memory – which is just a mental repetition of the earlier physical escape from the painful perception – is made easier for a key reason. Unlike a real perception, a memory doesn’t have enough vivid quality to strongly excite consciousness and attract a fresh charge of mental energy.

This effortless and consistent way the mind has of turning away from the memory of something that was once painful gives us a model. It’s the first example of what we call psychical repression. It is well known how much of this tendency to avoid what is painful – like an ostrich burying its head in the sand – can still be seen in the inner lives of normal adults.

As a result of the unpleasure principle, the first mental system (the primary system) is completely unable to include anything unpleasant in its thoughts. All this system can do is wish.

If this were the only way the mind worked, it would severely limit the thinking activity of the second system. The second system needs to have access to all the memories stored from experience, including unpleasant ones, to function properly.

Two paths are now possible for the second system:

It could free itself completely from the unpleasure principle. It would then continue its work without worrying about any unpleasure stirred up by a memory.
Or, it could energize (charge) the unpleasant memory in such a way that the release of unpleasure is prevented.

We can reject the first possibility. It’s clear that the unpleasure principle also acts as a regulator for how excitement flows in the second system.

This leaves us with the second possibility: the second system is able to energize memories in a way that stops their discharge. This also stops any discharge – similar to how a nerve impulse to a muscle can be inhibited – that would lead to the development of unpleasure.

So, we have two starting points for our thinking:

The mind takes into account the unpleasure principle.
It also considers the principle of using the least amount of energy (innervation). These lead us to the hypothesis that when the second system energizes a thought, this also acts to inhibit the discharge of excitement.

But let’s hold onto this thought – it’s the key to the theory of repression: the second system can only energize an idea if it is also able to stop any unpleasure that might come from that idea. Anything that might somehow escape this inhibition would also be inaccessible to the second system. Because of the unpleasure principle, such an idea would be promptly dropped.

However, this stopping of unpleasure doesn’t have to be total. The very beginnings of unpleasure must be allowed. They give the second system some indication of the nature of the memory, and perhaps tell it whether that memory is unsuitable for the current purpose of the thinking process.

Primary and Secondary Mental Processes

I will now give a name to the mental process that only the first system allows: I call it the primary process. The process that results from the inhibition imposed by the second system, I will call the secondary process.

There’s another reason why the second system must act to correct the primary process.

The primary process aims to discharge excitement in order to create a perceptual identity. This means it tries to hallucinate a past satisfaction, using the built-up excitement to do so.
The secondary process has given up this intention. Instead, it aims to establish a thought-identity.

All thinking is really just a roundabout path. It starts from the memory of a satisfaction (which becomes the guiding, purposive idea). It aims to eventually re-energize that same memory in an identical way, but this time through real-world actions and experiences (motor experiences).

To achieve this thought-identity, thinking must focus on the connecting paths between ideas. It must not allow itself to be led astray by the emotional intensity of those ideas.

It’s clear that processes like condensation (packing multiple ideas into one) and the formation of in-between or compromise ideas are obstacles to achieving this goal of thought-identity. By replacing one idea with another, they divert thought from the original path. Therefore, in secondary process thinking, these kinds of processes are carefully avoided.

It’s also easy to see that the unpleasure principle, while offering important clues, also creates difficulties for the thinking process in its search for thought-identity. So, thinking must try to become more and more free from being exclusively regulated by the unpleasure principle. It must aim to limit the development of emotion (affect) during thought activity to the minimum amount that can still function as a useful signal.

This more refined way of functioning is meant to be achieved by a fresh “supercharge” of energy, which is provided through consciousness. However, we are well aware that this is rarely a complete success, even in the most normal inner life. Our thinking always remains open to being distorted by interference from the unpleasure principle.

But this vulnerability of thinking is not the main flaw in the efficient functioning of our mental apparatus. It’s not what makes it possible for thoughts, which seem like products of secondary thought activity, to fall prey to the primary psychical process. (We can now use “primary psychical process” as the term to describe the activity that leads to dreams and to hysterical symptoms).

The inefficiency that allows this to happen comes from the meeting of two factors from our developmental history:

One factor is entirely part of the mental apparatus itself. It has had a crucial influence on the relationship between the two systems (primary and secondary).
The other factor comes into play sporadically. It introduces driving forces of bodily (organic) origin into our inner mental life.

Both of these factors have their origins in infancy. They are the lasting results of the changes that our mental and physical being has gone through since childhood.

The Timeline of Primary and Secondary Processes

When I called a process in the mental apparatus “primary,” it wasn’t just because of its place in a hierarchy or its level of efficiency. In choosing this name, I also wanted to refer to time.

It’s true that, as far as we know, a mental apparatus that only has the primary process doesn’t actually exist. To that extent, it’s a theoretical idea. But we do know for a fact that primary processes are present from the very beginning of life. The secondary processes, on the other hand, only develop gradually as we grow. They inhibit and cover over the primary processes. They might not gain complete control over the primary processes until we reach the prime of life.

As a consequence of this late arrival of the secondary processes:

The core of our being, which is made up of unconscious wishful impulses, cannot be fully understood or stopped by the Preconscious. The Preconscious’s role is permanently limited to pointing out the most convenient ways for these wishful impulses from the Unconscious to find expression.
These unconscious wishes exert a kind of pressure or compulsion on all the mind’s later goals and efforts. Our later mental activities have to either adapt to this pressure or work hard to divert it, redirecting it towards higher, more acceptable aims.

Another consequence of this late appearance of the secondary processes is that a large area of memory material also remains inaccessible to being energized by the Preconscious.

Now, among these wishful impulses that come from our infancy – impulses that cannot be destroyed or stopped – there are also some whose fulfillment would contradict the goal-oriented ideas pursued by secondary thinking.

The fulfillment of these particular wishes would no longer produce an emotion of pleasure. Instead, it would produce unpleasure. It is this very transformation of emotion (from pleasure to unpleasure) that defines the nature of what we call repression. How such a transformation happens, what paths it follows, and what forces drive it – these questions make up the complex problem of repression, which we only need to touch upon briefly here.

For our purposes, it’s enough to understand that this kind of transformation of emotion does occur during our development. (We only have to think of how feelings like disgust emerge in a child’s life, feelings that were not there at the very beginning). We also need to understand that this transformation is linked to the activity of the second (secondary process) system.

The memories that are the starting point for an unconscious wish to release an emotion were never accessible to the Preconscious. That’s why the release of the emotion connected to them cannot be stopped by the Preconscious either.

Precisely because this emotion now emerges as unpleasure, these underlying ideas become inaccessible. They are even inaccessible to the preconscious thoughts onto which they have transferred their wishful energy. On the contrary, the unpleasure principle takes charge. It causes the Preconscious to turn away from these thoughts that carry the transferred wish.

These thoughts are then left to themselves; they are “repressed.” And so, the presence of a store of infantile memories, which were unavailable to the Preconscious from the very start, becomes the necessary condition for repression to occur.

In the best-case scenarios, the production of unpleasure stops as soon as the energy from the Preconscious is withdrawn from the thoughts that carried the transferred wish. This successful outcome shows that the unpleasure principle has worked effectively.

However, it’s a different story if the repressed unconscious wish gets a boost of energy from a physical (organic) source. The wish then lends this extra energy to the thoughts it has transferred onto. This puts these thoughts in a position where they try to force their way through with their excitement, even if they have lost their energy charge from the Preconscious.

A defensive struggle then begins. In this struggle, the Preconscious strengthens its opposition to the repressed thoughts. Eventually, there’s a breakthrough of these transference-thoughts (which are the carriers of the unconscious wish). They find expression in some kind of compromise, often by forming a symptom.

But from the moment these repressed thoughts are powerfully charged with the excitement of the unconscious wish, and, at the same time, have been abandoned by their preconscious energy charge, they fall under the control of the primary process. Their only aim then becomes:

Release through physical action (motor discharge).
Or, if the way is open, a hallucinatory re-experiencing of the desired perception (perceptual identity).

Earlier, we found through observation that the irrational processes we described (like those in the dream-work) only unfold with thoughts that are in a state of repression. Now we can understand another part of this: these irrational processes are the primary processes of the mental apparatus.

They always appear whenever imagined ideas:

Are deserted by their preconscious energy charge.
Are left to themselves.
Can then be energized by the uninhibited energy of the Unconscious, which is always striving for discharge.

There are also other observations that support the view that these processes I’ve called “irrational” are not mistakes or falsifications of normal thinking. They are not intellectual errors. Instead, they are ways the mental apparatus operates when it is free from inhibition.

For example, we can see that the shift from preconscious excitement to physical action follows these same primary processes.
Also, the way preconscious imagined ideas attach to words can easily show the very same kinds of displacements and confusions that we normally blame on simple inattention.
Finally, we get evidence of the increased mental work needed to hold back these primary ways of functioning from a common experience: we produce a comic effect – a surplus of energy that gets discharged in laughter – if we allow these primary modes of thinking to force their way into our conscious awareness.

The theory of psychoneuroses states with absolute certainty that only wishful impulses from infancy that are sexual in nature and have undergone repression (meaning their associated emotion has been transformed) can be revived in later periods of development. This revival might happen due to an individual’s sexual makeup (which, of course, developed from an original state of bisexuality) or due to unfavorable influences on their sex life. If these infantile sexual wishes are revived, they provide the driving force for the formation of all psychoneurotic symptoms. It is only by including these sexual forces that we can fill the obvious gaps in the theory of repression.

I will leave it as an open question whether sexual and infantile factors should also be considered essential for the theory of dreams. I am leaving my theory of dreams unfinished at this point, because I have already gone a step beyond what can be strictly proven by assuming that dream-wishes always originate in the Unconscious.

Nor will I go any further here in investigating what makes the interplay of mental forces different in the formation of dreams compared to the formation of hysterical symptoms. After all, we don’t have accurate enough knowledge about one of these two areas to make a detailed comparison.

But there is another point that I consider very important. I must confess that it is only for the sake of this point that I have included my entire discussion of the two mental systems, their ways of operating, and repression. For now, it doesn’t primarily matter whether my understanding of these things is perfectly correct, or (as is easily possible in such difficult matters) whether it is skewed and incomplete.

However much our interpretation of mental censorship, and of the rational and abnormal revisions of dream-content, may change in the future, this will still hold true: processes of this kind are active in the formation of dreams. And, in their essentials, they are very closely similar to the processes we have identified in the formation of hysterical symptoms.

Now, a dream is not a pathological phenomenon; it doesn’t mean there’s a disturbance of mental balance, and it doesn’t leave any reduction in mental efficiency behind it. The objection that my own dreams and the dreams of my neurotic patients don’t allow us to draw conclusions about the dreams of normal people can be dismissed without much thought.

So, when we reason from these phenomena back to the forces that drive them, we are recognizing something crucial: the mental mechanism that neurosis uses is not created by a pathological disorder attacking the inner life. Instead, this mechanism is already present in the normal structure of our mental apparatus.

The two mental systems, the censorship between them, the way one activity can inhibit and overlay another, the relationships of both to consciousness – or whatever a more correct future interpretation might offer in place of these ideas – all these belong to the normal structure of our mental instrument. Dreams show us one of an important way to understand that structure.

If we are content with a minimum of completely guaranteed new knowledge, we can say this: dreams prove to us that what is suppressed continues to exist even in normal people, and that this suppressed material remains capable of mental functioning. The dream itself is one of the expressions of what is suppressed. In theory, this is true in all cases. We can see it clearly and through experience in a great number of instances, and these are, in fact, the dreams that display the most striking characteristics of dream-life.

In waking life, what is suppressed in the mind is blocked from expression. Contradictions are removed by their opposites, and the suppressed material is cut off from our internal perception. But at night, through the power of compromise formations, this suppressed material finds ways and means to force its way into consciousness.

As a famous line from literature puts it: “If I cannot move Heaven, I will stir up Hell.” This suggests that if the higher, conscious pathways are blocked, the deeper, unconscious forces will find a way.

By continuing the analysis of dreams, we can get a little further in our understanding of how this most marvelous and mysterious instrument – the human mind – is put together. True, it is only a little further, but it is a beginning. This beginning enables us to push on further in their analysis, starting from other mental formations which have to be described as pathological.

For illnesses – at least those that are rightly called “functional” (meaning they don’t have a clear physical cause in terms of damage) – do not require the destruction of this mental apparatus or the creation of new splits within it as a precondition. Instead, they are to be explained dynamically: by the strengthening and weakening of the different components in the interplay of mental forces. Many of the effects of these forces are hidden when the mind is functioning normally.

I hope to show elsewhere how the composition of the mental apparatus out of these two agencies (or systems) also allows for a finer and more nuanced level of normal functioning than would be possible if there were only one.

(f) The Unconscious and Consciousness. Reality

If we look more closely at what our psychological discussions in the previous section suggested, it wasn’t so much the existence of two systems near the action-oriented (motor) end of the mental apparatus. Rather, it was the existence of two different processes of excitation and two ways (modes) this excitation can be discharged.

For us, this distinction would hardly matter. We must always be prepared to abandon our temporary (provisional) assumptions if we believe we are in a position to replace them with something else that is closer to the unknown reality we are trying to understand.

Rethinking Mental “Locations”

Let’s now try to correct some ideas that could be misleading. It’s easy to misunderstand if we think of the two mental systems (Unconscious and Preconscious) as actual, physical places within our minds. Terms like “repressing,” “pushing back,” or “pushing through” can add to this confusion.

So, when we say an unconscious thought tries to move into the Preconscious so it can then push through to consciousness, we don’t mean that a second, identical thought is formed in a new “place,” with the original still existing beside it. And when we talk about a thought “pushing through to consciousness,” let’s also be careful not to imagine it as a physical change of location.

Similarly, when we say a preconscious thought is pushed back, repressed, and then taken over by the Unconscious, we might be tempted by these images. These images come from ideas about battles for territory. We might assume that a mental formation in one “area” of the mind is actually dissolved and replaced by a new one in another “area.”

Instead of these location-based metaphors, let’s describe what seems closer to how things really work: A certain amount of mental energy is invested in a particular thought-formation, or energy is withdrawn from it. This means the mental structure either comes under the control of a particular mental agency or is removed from its control.

Here, we are replacing a topographical way of thinking (which focuses on mental places) with a dynamic one (which focuses on mental energies). What seems to move is not the mental formation itself, but rather its energy charge, or innervation.

Why a “Location” Model Can Still Be Useful

All the same, I think it’s useful and reasonable to keep using this picture-like way of representing the two systems as if they were locations. We can avoid misusing this model if we remember an important point: ideas, thoughts, and mental formations generally are not located in the physical parts of our nervous system (like brain cells). Instead, they exist, so to speak, between these parts, where mental resistances and pathways form.

Everything that can become an object of our inner perception is virtual. It’s like the image you see in a telescope, which is made by light rays passing through lenses. However, we are justified in thinking that the mental systems themselves – which are not mental in nature and will never be directly accessible to our mental perception – are like the lenses of the telescope that create the image.

If we continue this comparison, the censorship between the two systems would be like the bending (refraction) of a ray of light as it passes from one substance into another.

Connecting with Mainstream Psychology: The Unconscious

Up to now, I’ve been developing these psychological ideas largely on my own. It’s time to look at the main theoretical opinions in contemporary psychology and see how they relate to my proposals.

The question of the Unconscious in psychology is, as the philosopher Lipps forcefully put it, not just a psychological question, but the central question of psychology itself. For a long time, psychology dealt with this question with a simple verbal explanation: “the mental” was just “the conscious.” The idea of “unconscious mental processes” was considered obvious nonsense. This attitude closed the door to any psychological assessment of the observations that doctors were able to make from studying abnormal mental states.

A doctor and a philosopher can only find common ground when both recognize that “unconscious mental processes” is the most appropriate and thoughtful way to describe a well-established fact.

All a doctor can do is shrug off the claim that “consciousness is the defining characteristic of what is mental.” Perhaps, if the doctor still has enough respect for philosophers’ opinions, they might assume that philosophers are not dealing with the same subject or pursuing the same science.

This is because even a single insightful observation of the inner life of a person with a neurosis, or a single analysis of a dream, is bound to create an unshakable conviction in the doctor. This conviction is that it’s possible for the most complicated and logical thought processes – which surely deserve to be called mental processes – to happen without a person’s conscious awareness.

Certainly, the doctor only learns about these unconscious processes after they have produced some effect on consciousness that can be communicated or observed. But this effect on consciousness can have a mental character that is completely different from the unconscious process that caused it. This makes it impossible for our internal perception to recognize the conscious effect as a direct substitute for the unconscious cause.

The doctor must insist on their right to use a method of inference – drawing conclusions from evidence – to work their way from the effect on consciousness back to the unconscious mental process. In doing so, the doctor learns that:

The effect on consciousness is only a distant mental consequence of the unconscious process.
The unconscious process itself did not become conscious.
The unconscious process was present and active all along, without revealing itself to consciousness in any way.

The essential first step to truly understanding how the mind works is to stop overvaluing the characteristic of consciousness. As Lipps also stated, the Unconscious must be assumed to be the general foundation of mental life.

The Unconscious is the larger sphere that includes the smaller sphere of the Conscious. Everything conscious first goes through an unconscious stage. However, the Unconscious can remain at this stage and still be considered a complete and valid mental function.

The Unconscious is the true reality of our minds. Its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the external world. And consciousness reveals this inner mental reality just as imperfectly as our senses reveal the external world.

Reattributing Dream Feats to the Unconscious

Now that we’ve established the old contrast between conscious life and the dream life (as representing the mental Unconscious), a number of problems about dreams that deeply concerned earlier writers have been resolved. Many amazing feats performed in dreams, which made these authors marvel, should no longer be credited to the dream itself. Instead, they belong to unconscious thinking, which is also active during the day.

If, as Schemer suggested, dreams seem to play with a symbolic representation of the body, this is actually the work of certain unconscious fantasies. These fantasies probably arise from sexual impulses and are expressed not only in dreams but also in hysterical phobias and other symptoms.

If a dream continues the work of the day and completes it, or even brings valuable new ideas to light, we simply need to strip away its dream disguise. This disguise is the achievement of the dream-work and was once seen as a sign of help from mysterious dark powers in our soul (like the Devil in the famous story of Tartini’s sonata dream). The intellectual achievement itself is due to the same mental powers that accomplish such feats during our waking hours.

We are probably far too inclined to overestimate the conscious nature even of intellectual or artistic creation. However, from what some highly productive people, like Goethe and Helmholtz, tell us, we learn that the new and essential parts of their creations often came into their minds suddenly. These ideas entered their awareness almost fully formed. There is nothing strange about consciousness also contributing in other instances where the efforts of all our mental powers were needed. But it is the much-abused privilege of consciousness that, whenever it plays a part, it tends to hide all the other activities of the mind from us.

The Historical Significance of Dreams

It’s hardly worth suggesting that the historical significance of dreams is a special topic in itself. Cases where a dream supposedly caused a military commander to undertake a great mission, whose success then changed the course of history, only present a new problem if we treat the dream as some alien force, separate from our other, more familiar mental powers. This ceases to be a problem if we see the dream as a form of expression for impulses. These impulses are blocked by resistance during the day but are able to draw extra strength from deep sources of excitement at night.

However, the respect that ancient peoples paid to dreams is a tribute. It’s based on a true psychological intuition about the untamed, indestructible elements in the human soul – the powerful, almost “daemonic” forces that produce the dream-wish. These are the forces that we rediscover in our Unconscious.

My Specific Concept of the Unconscious

I say “in our Unconscious” deliberately. What I have given this name to is not identical to the “Unconscious” as philosophers talk about it, not even the “Unconscious” as Lipps understands it.

To philosophers, “the Unconscious” simply means the opposite of “the conscious.”
Lipps goes further. He suggests that everything mental is present in an unconscious state, and some of that is also present in a state of consciousness.

However, it’s not primarily from studying dreams or the formation of hysterical symptoms that we find evidence for Lipps’s idea. Observation of our everyday life alone is enough to establish this beyond any doubt.

The new thing we have learned from analyzing psychopathological formations – indeed, from the first in that series, the dream – is this: the Unconscious (which is the essential nature of the mind) operates as the function of two separate systems. And this happens even in normal mental life.

Therefore, there are two kinds of Unconscious, which I find other psychologists have not yet distinguished:

Both are “unconscious” in the general psychological sense of not being conscious.
But in my model, the one I have called the Uncon. (often meaning the deeper, repressed unconscious) is also incapable of reaching consciousness directly.
The other, which I have called the Precon., is different. Although its contents are not currently in consciousness and must follow certain rules and pass a fresh censorship, its excitations are able to reach consciousness. This can happen without directly involving the Uncon. system.

The fact that, in order to reach consciousness, mental excitations have to make their way through an unchangeable sequence of mental agencies – which we discovered from the changes imposed by the censorship these agencies exercise – enabled us to set up a kind of spatial analogy. We described the relationships between the two systems, and their relationship to consciousness, by saying that the Precon. system stood like a partition screen between the Uncon. system and consciousness.

We also said that the Precon. system didn’t just block access to consciousness. It also governed access to voluntary movement and directed the transmission of a mobile form of mental energy, a part of which is familiar to us as attention.

We also need to distance ourselves from the distinction between “supraconsciousness” and “subconsciousness.” This distinction has become popular in recent writings on psychoneuroses. My main issue with it is that it seems to emphasize that “what is mental” and “what is conscious” are essentially the same thing, which I believe is incorrect.

The Role of Consciousness

What role, then, is left in my account for consciousness, which was once considered all-powerful and seemed to hide everything else from view? Its role is no more than that of a sensory organ for perceiving mental qualities.

In line with the basic ideas of my proposed model, I can only think of conscious perception as the special function of a particular system. We can appropriately abbreviate this system as Con. (for Consciousness). I imagine this Con. system to be similar in its mechanical characteristics to the perception system, Per. (which deals with perceiving the external world). That is:

The Con. system is able to be excited by qualities.
It is incapable of holding onto any trace of change; in other words, it has no memory of its own.

The mental apparatus, which faces the external world with the sensory organs of the Per. systems, is itself the “external world” for the sensory organ of Con. The purpose and justification for Con. (its teleological justification) lies in this arrangement. Here again, we see the principle of a series of mental agencies that seems to govern the structure of the apparatus.

The excitatory material that flows to the sensory organ of Con. comes from two directions:

From the Per. system: Here, the excitation, which is determined by qualities (like light, sound, etc.), probably undergoes further processing until it becomes a conscious sensation.
From within the mental apparatus itself: Here, quantitative processes (amounts of energy) are felt qualitatively as the range of feelings from pleasure to unpleasure, once these processes have undergone certain changes.

Those philosophers who realized that rational and highly organized thought-formations are possible even without any contribution from consciousness then had a hard time assigning any function to consciousness. It seemed to them to be just a needless mirror, reflecting the already completed mental process.

We are saved from this difficulty by the analogy between our Con. system and the perceptual systems. We can see that perception by our external sensory organs (the Per. system) has the effect of directing a charge of attention towards the pathways where the incoming sensory excitement is spreading. The qualitative excitement of the Per. system serves to regulate the discharge of mobile quantities of energy within the mental apparatus.

We can claim the same function for the sensory organ that lies “above” this, the Con. system.

By perceiving new qualities (this time, internal mental qualities), it makes a new contribution to directing the mobile quantities of energy charge and to distributing them appropriately.
By its perception of pleasure and unpleasure, it influences the course of these energy charges within the mental apparatus. Otherwise, this apparatus operates unconsciously and by means of simply shifting quantities of energy around (displacement).

It’s probable that, at first, the movement of energy charges is regulated automatically by the unpleasure principle. But it’s quite possible that consciousness of these qualities (pleasure, unpleasure, and other mental qualities) adds a second, more refined level of regulation. This finer regulation can even be at odds with the first, more basic one. It completes the efficiency of the mental apparatus by enabling it – quite contrary to its original tendency – to subject even what is connected with the release of unpleasure to the processes of being energized and re-examined.

We learn from the psychology of neuroses that a major part in the functioning of the mental apparatus is assigned to this regulation by the qualitative excitations of the sensory organs (both the external Per. system and the internal Con. system). The automatic dominance of the primary unpleasure principle, and the restriction in efficiency that this involves, are broken by these processes of sensory regulation, which are themselves automatic actions.

We also learn that repression – which originally served a purpose but nevertheless often ends in a harmful loss of inhibition and inner control – is more easily applied to memories than to perceptions. This is because memories, unlike fresh perceptions, cannot receive any additional charge of energy from the excitation of the mind’s internal sensory organ (the Con. system).

If a thought that needs to be defended against does not enter consciousness on one hand because it is subject to repression, it can at other times only be repressed because it has already been withdrawn from conscious perception for other reasons. These are the kinds of insights we use in our therapy to try to reverse repressions that have already taken place.

From a purpose-driven (teleological) point of view, the value of this “supercharge” of energy – produced by the regulatory influence of the Con. sensory organ on the mobile quantities of energy – cannot be better shown than by its ability to create a new series of qualities. This, in turn, creates a new regulatory process. This is what constitutes the superiority of human beings over animals.

For thought processes, in themselves, are without quality. The only exceptions are the pleasurable and unpleasurable excitements that accompany them. And these, as possible disturbances to clear thinking, are meant to be kept within reasonable limits. In order to give thoughts some quality, they are associated in human beings with verbal memories (memories of words). The leftover quality of these verbal memories is enough to attract the attention of consciousness to them. Consciousness will then invest the thinking process with a fresh charge of mobile energy.

We can only get a full picture of the various problems related to consciousness when we analyze hysterical thought processes. When we do this, we get the impression that the transfer of energy from the Preconscious to consciousness is also associated with a censorship. This censorship is similar to the one that operates between the Unconscious and the Preconscious.

This second censorship also only seems to become active when a certain quantitative limit – a certain level of intensity – is reached. This means that less intense thought-formations can escape it.

All the possible ways in which thoughts might refuse to enter consciousness, or might force their way into it only under certain limitations, can be found within the range of psychoneurotic phenomena. All these cases point to an intimate, back-and-forth relationship between censorship and consciousness.

I will end these psychological thoughts with a report of two examples that illustrate this.

First Example: The Girl with Pains

Last year, I had a consultation with a girl who looked intelligent and not at all embarrassed. Her style of dress was unsettling. While women’s clothes are normally neat down to the last detail, one of her stockings was hanging down, and two buttons of her blouse were open.

She complained about having pains in one leg and, without being asked, she showed me her calf. But her main complaint, in her own words, was this: she had a feeling in her body as if something were sticking into it, moving back and forth, and shaking her all over. When that happened, her whole body seemed to grow stiff.

My colleague, who was also present, caught my eye. He had no difficulty understanding the real meaning of her complaint. It seemed remarkable to both of us that the patient’s mother seemed to make nothing of it, even though she must have found herself many times in the situation her daughter was describing.

The girl herself had no idea of the meaning of what she was saying. If she had known, she would not have said it. In her case, the censorship had been successfully hidden or bypassed. This allowed a fantasy, which would otherwise have remained in the Preconscious, to be admitted into consciousness under the seemingly harmless disguise of a physical complaint.

Second Example: The Boy and the Dagger

Another example. I began the psychoanalytic treatment of a fourteen-year-old boy. He was suffering from convulsive tics, hysterical vomiting, headaches, and similar issues. I started by assuring him that when he closed his eyes, he would see images, or ideas would come into his mind, and he should tell me about them.

He answered by describing images. The last impression he had before coming to see me was revived visually in his memory. He had been playing a board game with his uncle, and now he saw the board in front of him. He thought about various positions in the game that were good or bad, and moves that one should not make.

Then, he saw a dagger lying on the board. This dagger was an object that his father owned, but his imagination had placed it onto the game board.

Then, a sickle appeared on the game board. Next, it was joined by a scythe. And now, the image of an old farmer appeared, mowing the grass with a scythe in front of the boy’s faraway childhood home.

After a few days, I came to understand this sequence of images. Unhappy family circumstances had deeply upset the boy. He had a harsh, easily angered father who constantly quarreled with his mother and raised his son using threats. His father had divorced his gentle, tender mother. Then, his father remarried, bringing a young woman home one day to be the boy’s new mother. It was in the first few days after this remarriage that the fourteen-year-old’s illness began.

The boy’s suppressed rage against his father had formed these images into understandable hints. A memory from mythology provided the material for these images:

The sickle is the one Zeus used to castrate his father.
The scythe and the image of the farmer represent Cronos, the violent old man in mythology who devours his children, and on whom Zeus takes such disrespectful revenge.

The father’s new marriage was an occasion for the boy to mentally “throw back” at his father the accusations and threats the boy had previously heard from him. These threats were likely because the boy had been playing with his genitals (alluded to by the board game, the “forbidden moves,” and the dagger that one can use to kill).

In this case, it is clear that long-repressed memories and their unconscious consequences had slipped into consciousness. They did this by taking roundabout routes that opened up to them in the form of these apparently meaningless images.

The Value of Studying Dreams

So, I would look for the theoretical value of being interested in dreams in two main areas:

The contributions it makes to our general psychological knowledge.
The start it provides towards our understanding of the psychoneuroses (mental and emotional disorders).

Who can guess how important a deep understanding of the structure and functions of the mental apparatus might become? Even our current level of knowledge allows our therapies to have a positive influence on the forms of psychoneuroses that are essentially curable.

And what about the practical value of this interest in dreams? I can hear people asking about its value for understanding the mind and for revealing hidden character traits in individuals.

Don’t the unconscious impulses revealed in dreams have the power of real forces in our inner lives?
Should the ethical significance of our suppressed wishes be treated as unimportant? After all, just as these wishes create dreams, they might one day create other things too.

Should We Judge People by Their Dreams?

I don’t feel I am in a position to answer these questions directly. My thoughts on dreams have not focused on this particular aspect.

I only think that, in any case, the Roman Emperor was wrong to have his subject executed because the man dreamed he had murdered the Emperor. The Emperor should first have been concerned with what the dream meant. Most likely, its meaning was not what it seemed to be on the surface. And even if a dream with a different surface story did have this treasonous meaning, it would still be good for us to remember Plato’s observation: the virtuous man is content to dream what the wicked man actually does.

In my view, then, it is best to “absolve” dreams – that is, not to hold people morally responsible for the content of their dreams.

Whether we should consider unconscious wishes to be “real” in a practical sense, I cannot say for sure. Of course, we cannot grant such reality to any of the transitional or in-between thoughts that appear in dream analysis. When we look at these unconscious wishes reduced to their most basic, truest expression, we must remember that what has mental reality can also exist in more than one form.

To meet our practical need to judge people’s characters, their actions and consciously expressed opinions are usually sufficient. Actions, above all, deserve to be given the most weight. This is because many impulses that force their way into consciousness are still often cancelled out by real forces in our inner life before they lead to action. Indeed, that is often why these impulses don’t encounter any mental obstacles on their way to consciousness – because the Unconscious is confident they will be stopped at another point.

In any case, it is still informative to get to know the often-disturbed “soil” from which our virtues proudly grow. The complexity of a human character, which is dynamically pulled in different directions, can very seldom be understood by choosing between simple alternatives, as our outdated, overly simplistic morality would have us do.

Dreams: A Window to the Past, Not the Future

And what about the value of dreams for our knowledge of the future? Of course, that is out of the question. Dreams cannot predict the future.

Instead, we should ask about their value for our knowledge of the past. For in every sense, dreams come from the past.

It’s true, however, that the ancient belief that dreams show us the future is not entirely without some grain of truth. By representing a wish as fulfilled, a dream does indeed take us into a kind of “future.” But this “future,” which the dreamer experiences as the present moment, is actually shaped by an indestructible wish. And this wish molds the “future” into an image of the past.