The Interpretation of Dreams

If I make the assertion that wish fulfilment is the meaning of every dream, that, accordingly, there can be no dreams except wish dreams, I am sure at the outset to meet with the most emphatic contradiction. Objections will be made to this effect: “The fact that there are dreams which must be understood as fulfilments of wishes is not new, but, on the contrary, has long since been recognised by the authors. Cf. Radestock[54] (pp. 137–138), Volkelt[72] (pp. 110–111), Tissié[68] (p. 70), M. Simon[63] (p. 42) on the hunger dreams of the imprisoned Baron Trenck, and the passage in Griesinger[31] (p. 11). The assumption that there can be nothing but dreams of wish fulfilment, however, is another of those unjustified generalisations by which you have been pleased to distinguish yourself of late. Indeed dreams which exhibit the most painful content, but not a trace of wish fulfilment, occur plentifully enough. The pessimistic philosopher, Edward von Hartman, perhaps stands furthest from the theory of wish fulfilment. He expresses himself in his Philosophy of the Unconscious, Part II. (stereotyped edition, p. 34), to the following effect:—

“‘As regards the dream, all the troubles of waking life are transferred by it to the sleeping state; only the one thing, which can in some measure reconcile a cultured person to life-scientific and artistic enjoyment is not transferred....’ But even less discontented observers have laid emphasis on the fact that in dreams pain and disgust are more frequent than pleasure; so Scholz[59] (p. 39), Volkelt[72] (p. 80), and others. Indeed two ladies, Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam,[33] have found from the elaboration of their dreams a mathematical expression for the preponderance of displeasure in dreams. They designate 58 per cent. of the dreams as disagreeable, and only 28·6 per cent. as positively pleasant. Besides those dreams which continue the painful sensations of life during sleep, there are also dreams of fear, in which this most terrible of all disagreeable sensations tortures us until we awake, and it is with just these dreams of fear that children are so often persecuted (Cf. Debacker [17] concerning the Pavor Nocturnus), though it is in the case of children that you have found dreams of wishing undisguised.”

Indeed it is the anxiety dreams which seem to prevent a generalisation of the thesis that the dream is a wish-fulfilment, which we have established by means of the examples in the last section; they seem even to brand this thesis as an absurdity.

It is not difficult, however, to escape these apparently conclusive objections. Please observe that our doctrine does not rest upon an acceptance of the manifest dream content, but has reference to the thought content which is found to lie behind the dream by the process of interpretation. Let us contrast the manifest and the latent dream content. It is true that there are dreams whose content is of the most painful nature. But has anyone ever tried to interpret these dreams, to disclose their latent thought content? If not, the two objections are no longer valid against us; there always remains the possibility that even painful and fearful dreams may be discovered to be wish fulfilments upon interpretation.[AE]

In scientific work it is often advantageous, when the solution of one problem presents difficulties, to take up a second problem, just as it is easier to crack two nuts together instead of separately. Accordingly we are confronted not merely with the problem: How can painful and fearful dreams be the fulfilments of wishes? but we may also, from our discussion so far, raise the question: Why do not the dreams which show an indifferent content, but turn out to be wish-fulfilments, show this meaning undisguised? Take the fully reported dream of Irma’s injection; it is in no way painful in its nature, and can be recognised, upon interpretation, as a striking wish-fulfilment. Why, in the first place, is an interpretation necessary? Why does not the dream say directly what it means? As a matter of fact, even the dream of Irma’s injection does not at first impress us as representing a wish of the dreamer as fulfilled. The reader will not have received this impression, and even I myself did not know it until I had undertaken the analysis. If we call this peculiarity of the dream of needing an explanation the fact of the distortion of dreams, then a second question arises: What is the origin of this disfigurement of dreams?

If one’s first impressions on this subject were consulted, one might happen upon several possible solutions; for example, that there is an inability during sleep to find an adequate expression for the dream thoughts. The analysis of certain dreams, however, compels us to give the disfigurement of dreams another explanation. I shall show this by employing a second dream of my own, which again involves numerous indiscretions, but which compensates for this personal sacrifice by affording a thorough elucidation of the problem.

Preliminary Statement.—In the spring of 1897 I learnt that two professors of our university had proposed me for appointment as Professor extraord. (assistant professor). This news reached me unexpectedly and pleased me considerably as an expression of appreciation on the part of two eminent men which could not be explained by personal interest. But, I immediately thought, I must not permit myself to attach any expectation to this event. The university government had during the last few years left proposals of this kind unconsidered, and several colleagues, who were ahead of me in years, and who were at least my equals in merit, had been waiting in vain during this time for their appointment. I had no reason to suppose I should fare better. I resolved then to comfort myself. I am not, so far as I know, ambitious, and I engage in medical practice with satisfying results even without the recommendation of a title. Moreover, it was not a question whether I considered the grapes sweet or sour, for they undoubtedly hung much too high for me.

One evening I was visited by a friend of mine, one of those colleagues whose fate I had taken as a warning for myself. As he had long been a candidate for promotion to the position of professor, which in our society raises the physician to a demigod among his patients, and as he was less resigned than I, he was in the habit of making representations from time to time, at the offices of the university government, for the purpose of advancing his interests. He came to me from a visit of that kind. He said that this time he had driven the exalted gentleman into a corner, and had asked him directly whether considerations of creed were not really responsible for the deferment of his appointment. The answer had been that to be sure—in the present state of public opinion—His Excellency was not in a position, &c. “Now I at least know what I am at,” said my friend in closing his narrative, which told me nothing new, but which was calculated to confirm me in my resignation. For the same considerations of creed applied to my own case.

On the morning after this visit, I had the following dream, which was notable on account of its form. It consisted of two thoughts and two images, so that a thought and an image alternated. But I here record only the first half of the dream, because the other half has nothing to do with the purpose which the citation of the dream should serve.

As the dream occurred to me in the course of the forenoon, I laughed outright and said: “The dream is nonsense.” But I could not get it out of my mind, and the whole day it pursued me, until, at last, in the evening I reproached myself with the words: “If in the course of dream interpretation one of your patients had nothing better to say than ‘That is nonsense,’ you would reprove him, and would suspect that behind the dream there was hidden some disagreeable affair, the exposure of which he wanted to spare himself. Apply the same thing in your own case; your opinion that the dream is nonsense probably signifies merely an inner resistance to its interpretation. Do not let yourself be deterred.” I then proceeded to the interpretation.

“R. is my uncle.” What does that mean. I have had only one uncle, my uncle Joseph.[AF] His story, to be sure, was a sad one. He had yielded to the temptation, more than thirty years before, of engaging in dealings which the law punishes severely, and which on that occasion also it had visited with punishment. My father, who thereupon became grey from grief in a few days, always used to say that Uncle Joseph was never a wicked man, but that he was indeed a simpleton; so he expressed himself. If, then, friend R. is my uncle Joseph, that is equivalent to saying: “R. is a simpleton.” Hardly credible and very unpleasant! But there is that face which I see in the dream, with its long features and its yellow beard. My uncle actually had such a face—long and surrounded by a handsome blond beard. My friend R. was quite dark, but when dark-haired persons begin to grow grey, they pay for the glory of their youthful years. Their black beard undergoes an unpleasant change of color, each hair separately; first it becomes reddish brown, then yellowish brown, and then at last definitely grey. The beard of my friend R. is now in this stage, as is my own moreover, a fact which I notice with regret. The face which I see in the dream is at once that of my friend R. and that of my uncle. It is like a composite photograph of Galton, who, in order to emphasise family resemblances, had several faces photographed on the same plate. No doubt is thus possible, I am really of the opinion that my friend R. is a simpleton—like my uncle Joseph.

I have still no idea for what purpose I have constructed this relationship, to which I must unconditionally object. But it is not a very far-reaching one, for my uncle was a criminal, my friend R. is innocent—perhaps with the exception of having been punished for knocking down an apprentice with his bicycle. Could I mean this offence? That would be making ridiculous comparisons. Here I recollect another conversation which I had with another colleague, N., and indeed upon the same subject. I met N. on the street. He likewise has been nominated for a professorship, and having heard of my being honoured, congratulated me upon it. I declined emphatically, saying, “You are the last man to make a joke like this, because you have experienced what the nomination is worth in your own case.” Thereupon he said, though probably not in earnest, “You cannot be sure about that. Against me there is a very particular objection. Don’t you know that a woman once entered a legal complaint against me? I need not assure you that an inquiry was made; it was a mean attempt at blackmail, and it was all I could do to save the plaintiff herself from punishment. But perhaps the affair will be pressed against me at the office in order that I may not be appointed. You, however, are above reproach.” Here I have come upon a criminal, and at the same time upon the interpretation and trend of the dream. My uncle Joseph represents for me both colleagues who have not been appointed to the professorship, the one as a simpleton, the other as a criminal.

I also know now for what purpose I need this representation. If considerations of creed are a determining factor in the postponement of the appointment of my friends, then my own appointment is also put in question: but if I can refer the rejection of the two friends to other causes, which do not apply to my case, my hope remains undisturbed. This is the procedure of my dream; it makes the one, R., a simpleton, the other, N., a criminal; since, however, I am neither the one nor the other, our community of interest is destroyed, I have a right to enjoy the expectation of being appointed a professor, and have escaped the painful application to my own case of the information which the high official has given to R.

I must occupy myself still further with the interpretation of this dream. For my feelings it is not yet sufficiently cleared up. I am still disquieted by the ease with which I degrade two respected colleagues for the purpose of clearing the way to the professorship for myself. My dissatisfaction with my procedure has indeed diminished since I have learnt to evaluate statements made in dreams. I would argue against anyone who urged that I really consider R. a simpleton, and that I do not credit N.’s account of the blackmail affair. I do not believe either that Irma has been made seriously ill by an injection given her by Otto with a preparation of propyl. Here, as before, it is only the wish that the case may be as the dream expresses it. The statement in which my wish is realised sounds less absurd in the second dream than in the first; it is made here with a more skilful utilisation of facts as points of attachment, something like a well-constructed slander, where “there is something in it.” For my friend R. had at that time the vote of a professor from the department against him, and my friend N. had himself unsuspectingly furnished me with the material for slander. Nevertheless, I repeat, the dream seems to me to require further elucidation.

I remember now that the dream contains still another portion which so far our interpretation has not taken into account. After it occurs to me that my friend R. is my uncle, I feel great affection for him. To whom does this feeling belong? For my uncle Joseph, of course, I have never had any feelings of affection. For years my friend R. has been beloved and dear to me; but if I were to go to him and express my feelings for him in terms which came anywhere near corresponding to the degree of affection in the dream, he would doubtless be surprised. My affection for him seems untrue and exaggerated, something like my opinion of his psychic qualities, which I express by fusing his personality with that of my uncle; but it is exaggerated in an opposite sense. But now a new state of affairs becomes evident to me. The affection in the dream does not belong to the hidden content, to the thoughts behind the dream; it stands in opposition to this content; it is calculated to hide the information which interpretation may bring. Probably this is its very purpose. I recall with what resistance I applied myself to the work of interpretation, how long I tried to postpone it, and how I declared the dream to be sheer nonsense. I know from my psychoanalytical treatments how such condemnation is to be interpreted. It has no value as affording information, but only as the registration of an affect. If my little daughter does not like an apple which is offered her, she asserts that the apple has a bitter taste, without even having tasted it.

If my patients act like the little girl, I know that it is a question of a notion which they want to suppress. The same applies to my dream. I do not want to interpret it because it contains something to which I object. After the interpretation of the dream has been completed, I find out what it was I objected to; it was the assertion that R. is a simpleton. I may refer the affection which I feel for R. not to the hidden dream thoughts, but rather to this unwillingness of mine. If my dream as compared with its hidden content is disfigured at this point, and is disfigured, moreover, into something opposite, then the apparent affection in the dream serves the purpose of disfigurement; or, in other words, the disfigurement is here shown to be intended: it is a means of dissimulation. My dream thoughts contain an unfavourable reference to R.; in order that I may not become aware of it, its opposite, a feeling of affection for him, makes its way into the dream.

The fact here recognised might be of universal applicability. As the examples in Section III. have shown, there are dreams which are undisguised wish-fulfilments. Wherever a wish-fulfilment is unrecognisable and concealed, there must be present a feeling of repulsion towards this wish, and in consequence of this repulsion the wish is unable to gain expression except in a disfigured state. I shall try to find a case in social life which is parallel to this occurrence in the inner psychic life. Where in social life can a similar disfigurement of a psychic act be found? Only where two persons are in question, one of whom possesses a certain power, while the other must have a certain consideration for this power. This second person will then disfigure his psychic actions, or, as we may say, he will dissimulate. The politeness which I practise every day is largely dissimulation of this kind. If I interpret my dreams for the benefit of the reader I am forced to make such distortions. The poet also complains about such disfigurement:

The political writer who has unpleasant truths to tell to the government finds himself in the same position. If he tells them without reserve, the government will suppress them—subsequently in case of a verbal expression of opinion, preventatively, if they are to be published in print. The writer must fear censure; he therefore modifies and disfigures the expression of his opinion. He finds himself compelled, according to the sensitiveness of this censure, either to restrain himself from certain particular forms of attack or to speak in allusion instead of direct designations. Or he must disguise his objectionable statement in a garb that seems harmless. He may, for instance, tell of an occurrence between two mandarins in the Orient, while he has the officials of his own country in view. The stricter the domination of the censor, the more extensive becomes the disguise, and often the more humorous the means employed to put the reader back on the track of the real meaning.

The correspondence between the phenomena of the censor and those of dream distortion, which may be traced in detail, justifies us in assuming similar conditions for both. We should then assume in each human being, as the primary cause of dream formation, two psychic forces (streams, systems), of which one constitutes the wish expressed by the dream, while the other acts as a censor upon this dream wish, and by means of this censoring forces a distortion of its expression. The only question is as to the basis of the authority of this second instance[AG] by virtue of which it may exercise its censorship. If we remember that the hidden dream thoughts are not conscious before analysis, but that the apparent dream content is remembered as conscious, we easily reach the assumption that admittance to consciousness is the privilege of the second instance. Nothing can reach consciousness from the first system which has not first passed the second instance, and the second instance lets nothing pass without exercising its rights and forcing such alterations upon the candidate for admission to consciousness as are pleasant to itself. We are here forming a very definite conception of the “essence” of consciousness; for us the state of becoming conscious is a particular psychic act, different from and independent of becoming fixed or of being conceived, and consciousness appears to us as an organ of sense, which perceives a content presented from another source. It may be shown that psychopathology cannot possibly dispense with these fundamental assumptions.

If I keep in mind the idea of the two psychic instances and their relations to consciousness, I find in the sphere of politics a very exact analogy for the extraordinary affection which I feel for my friend R., who suffers such degradation in the course of the dream interpretation. I turn my attention to a political state in which a ruler, jealous of his rights, and a live public opinion are in conflict with each other. The people are indignant against an official whom they hate, and demand his dismissal; and in order not to show that he is compelled to respect the public wish, the autocrat will expressly confer upon the official some great honour, for which there would otherwise have been no occasion. Thus the second instance referred to, which controls access to consciousness, honours my friend R. with a profusion of extraordinary tenderness, because the wish activities of the first system, in accordance with a particular interest which they happen to be pursuing, are inclined to put him down as a simpleton.[AH]

Perhaps we shall now begin to suspect that dream interpretation is capable of giving us hints about the structure of our psychic apparatus which we have thus far expected in vain from philosophy. We shall not, however, follow this track, but return to our original problem as soon as we have cleared up the subject of dream-disfigurement. The question has arisen how dreams with disagreeable content can be analysed as the fulfilments of wishes. We see now that this is possible in case dream-disfigurement has taken place, in case the disagreeable content serves only as a disguise for what is wished. Keeping in mind our assumptions in regard to the two psychic instances, we may now proceed to say: disagreeable dreams, as a matter of fact, contain something which is disagreeable to the second instance, but which at the same time fulfils a wish of the first instance. They are wish dreams in the sense that every dream originates in the first instance, while the second instance acts towards the dream only in a repelling, not in a creative manner. If we limit ourselves to a consideration of what the second instance contributes to the dream, we can never understand the dream. If we do so, all the riddles which the authors have found in the dream remain unsolved.

That the dream actually has a secret meaning, which turns out to be the fulfilment of a wish, must be proved afresh for every case by means of an analysis. I therefore select several dreams which have painful contents and attempt an analysis of them. They are partly dreams of hysterical subjects, which require long preliminary statements, and now and then also an examination of the psychic processes which occur in hysteria. I cannot, however, avoid this added difficulty in the exposition.

When I give a psychoneurotic patient analytical treatment, dreams are always, as I have said, the subject of our discussion. It must, therefore, give him all the psychological explanations through whose aid I myself have come to an understanding of his symptoms, and here I undergo an unsparing criticism, which is perhaps not less keen than that I must expect from my colleagues. Contradiction of the thesis that all dreams are the fulfilments of wishes is raised by my patients with perfect regularity. Here are several examples of the dream material which is offered me to refute this position.

“You always tell me that the dream is a wish fulfilled,” begins a clever lady patient. “Now I shall tell you a dream in which the content is quite the opposite, in which a wish of mine is not fulfilled. How do you reconcile that with your theory? The dream is as follows:—

“I want to give a supper, but having nothing at hand except some smoked salmon, I think of going marketing, but I remember that it is Sunday afternoon, when all the shops are closed. I next try to telephone to some caterers, but the telephone is out of order. Thus I must resign my wish to give a supper.”

I answer, of course, that only the analysis can decide the meaning of this dream, although I admit that at first sight it seems sensible and coherent, and looks like the opposite of a wish-fulfilment. “But what occurrence has given rise to this dream?” I ask. “You know that the stimulus for a dream always lies among the experiences of the preceding day.”

Analysis.—The husband of the patient, an upright and conscientious wholesale butcher, had told her the day before that he is growing too fat, and that he must, therefore, begin treatment for obesity. He was going to get up early, take exercise, keep to a strict diet, and above all accept no more invitations to suppers. She proceeds laughingly to relate how her husband at an inn table had made the acquaintance of an artist, who insisted upon painting his portrait because he, the painter, had never found such an expressive head. But her husband had answered in his rough way, that he was very thankful for the honour, but that he was quite convinced that a portion of the backside of a pretty young girl would please the artist better than his whole face.[AI] She said that she was at the time very much in love with her husband, and teased him a good deal. She had also asked him not to send her any caviare. What does that mean?

As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long time to eat a caviare sandwich every forenoon, but had grudged herself the expense. Of course, she would at once get the caviare from her husband, as soon as she asked him for it. But she had begged him, on the contrary, not to send her the caviare, in order that she might tease him about it longer.

This explanation seems far-fetched to me. Unadmitted motives are in the habit of hiding behind such unsatisfactory explanations. We are reminded of subjects hypnotised by Bernheim, who carried out a posthypnotic order, and who, upon being asked for their motives, instead of answering: “I do not know why I did that,” had to invent a reason that was obviously inadequate. Something similar is probably the case with the caviare of my patient. I see that she is compelled to create an unfulfilled wish in life. Her dream also shows the reproduction of the wish as accomplished. But why does she need an unfulfilled wish?

The ideas so far produced are insufficient for the interpretation of the dream. I beg for more. After a short pause, which corresponds to the overcoming of a resistance, she reports further that the day before she had made a visit to a friend, of whom she is really jealous, because her husband is always praising this woman so much. Fortunately, this friend is very lean and thin, and her husband likes well-rounded figures. Now of what did this lean friend speak? Naturally of her wish to become somewhat stouter. She also asked my patient: “When are you going to invite us again? You always have such a good table.”

Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I may say to the patient: “It is just as though you had thought at the time of the request: ‘Of course, I’ll invite you, so you can eat yourself fat at my house and become still more pleasing to my husband. I would rather give no more suppers.’ The dream then tells you that you cannot give a supper, thereby fulfilling your wish not to contribute anything to the rounding out of your friend’s figure. The resolution of your husband to refuse invitations to supper for the sake of getting thin teaches you that one grows fat on the things served in company.” Now only some conversation is necessary to confirm the solution. The smoked salmon in the dream has not yet been traced. “How did the salmon mentioned in the dream occur to you?” “Smoked salmon is the favourite dish of this friend,” she answered. I happen to know the lady, and may corroborate this by saying that she grudges herself the salmon just as much as my patient grudges herself the caviare.

The dream admits of still another and more exact interpretation, which is necessitated only by a subordinate circumstance. The two interpretations do not contradict one another, but rather cover each other and furnish a neat example of the usual ambiguity of dreams as well as of all other psychopathological formations. We have seen that at the same time that she dreams of the denial of the wish, the patient is in reality occupied in securing an unfulfilled wish (the caviare sandwiches). Her friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get fatter, and it would not surprise us if our lady had dreamt that the wish of the friend was not being fulfilled. For it is her own wish that a wish of her friend’s—for increase in weight—should not be fulfilled. Instead of this, however, she dreams that one of her own wishes is not fulfilled. The dream becomes capable of a new interpretation, if in the dream she does not intend herself, but her friend, if she has put herself in the place of her friend, or, as we may say, has identified herself with her friend.

I think she has actually done this, and as a sign of this identification she has created an unfulfilled wish in reality. But what is the meaning of this hysterical identification? To clear this up a thorough exposition is necessary. Identification is a highly important factor in the mechanism of hysterical symptoms; by this means patients are enabled in their symptoms to represent not merely their own experiences, but the experiences of a great number of other persons, and can suffer, as it were, for a whole mass of people, and fill all the parts of a drama by means of their own personalities alone. It will here be objected that this is well-known hysterical imitation, the ability of hysteric subjects to copy all the symptoms which impress them when they occur in others, as though their pity were stimulated to the point of reproduction. But this only indicates the way in which the psychic process is discharged in hysterical imitation; the way in which a psychic act proceeds and the act itself are two different things. The latter is slightly more complicated than one is apt to imagine the imitation of hysterical subjects to be: it corresponds to an unconscious concluded process, as an example will show. The physician who has a female patient with a particular kind of twitching, lodged in the company of other patients in the same room of the hospital, is not surprised when some morning he learns that this peculiar hysterical attack has found imitations. He simply says to himself: The others have seen her and have done likewise: that is psychic infection.