The Interpretation of Dreams

Besides the two factors of dream condensation and dream displacement which we have found to be active in the transformation of the latent dream material into the manifest content, we shall come in the course of this investigation upon two other conditions which exercise an unquestionable influence upon the selection of the material which gets into the dream. Even at the risk of seeming to stop our progress, I should like to glance at the processes by which the interpretation of dreams is accomplished. I do not deny that I should succeed best in making them clear, and in showing that they are sufficiently reliable to insure them against attack, by taking a single dream as a paradigm and developing its interpretation, as I have done in Chapter II. in the dream of “Irma’s Injection,” and then putting together the dream thoughts which I have discovered, and reconstructing the formation of the dream from them—that is to say, by supplementing the analysis of dreams by a synthesis of them. I have accomplished this with several specimens for my own instruction; but I cannot undertake to do it here because I am prevented by considerations, which every right-minded person must approve of, relative to the psychic material necessary for such a demonstration. In the analysis of dreams these considerations present less difficulty, for an analysis may be incomplete and still retain its value even if it leads only a short way into the thought labyrinth of the dream. I do not see how a synthesis could be anything short of complete in order to be convincing.

I could give a complete synthesis only of the dreams of such persons as are unknown to the reading public. Since, however, only neurotic patients furnish me with the means for doing this, this part of the description of the dream must be postponed until I can carry the psychological explanation of neuroses far enough—elsewhere—to be able to show their connection with the subject matter under consideration.[DT]

From my attempts synthetically to construct dreams from the dream thoughts, I know that the material which is obtained from interpretation varies in value. For a part of it consists of the essential dream thoughts which would, therefore, completely replace the dream, and which would in themselves be sufficient for this replacement if there were no censor for the dream. The other part may be summed up under the term “collaterals”; taken as a whole they represent the means by which the real wish that arises from the dream thoughts is transformed into the dream-wish. A first part of these “collaterals” consists of allusions to the actual dream thoughts, which, considered schematically, correspond to displacements from the essential to the non-essential. A second part comprises the thoughts which connect these non-essential elements, that have become significant through displacement with one another, and which reach from them into the dream content. Finally a third part contains the ideas and thought connections which (in the work of interpretation) conduct us from the dream content to the intermediary collaterals, all of which need not necessarily have participated in the formation of the dream.

At this point we are interested exclusively in the essential dream thoughts. These are usually found to be a complex of thoughts and memories of the most intricate possible construction, and to possess all the properties of the thought processes which are known to us from waking life. Not infrequently they are trains of thought which proceed from more than one centre, but which do not lack points of connection; almost regularly a chain of thought stands next to its contradictory correlative, being connected with it by contrast associations.

The individual parts of this complicated structure naturally stand in the most manifold logical relations to one another. They constitute a foreground or background, digressions, illustrations, conditions, chains of argument, and objections. When the whole mass of these dream thoughts is subjected to the pressure of the dream activity, during which the parts are turned about, broken up, and pushed together, something like drifting ice, there arises the question, what becomes of the logical ties which until now had given form to the structure? What representation do “if,” “because,” “as though,” “although,” “either—or,” and all the other conjunctions, without which we cannot understand a phrase or a sentence, receive in the dream?

At first we must answer that the dream has at its disposal no means for representing these logical relations among the dream thoughts. In most cases it disregards all these conjunctions, and undertakes the elaboration only of the objective content of the dream thoughts. It is left to the interpretation of the dream to restore the coherence which the activity of the dream has destroyed.

If the dream lacks ability to express these relations, the psychic material of which the dream is wrought must be responsible. The descriptive arts are limited in the same manner—painting and the plastic arts in comparison with poetry, which can employ speech; and here too the reason for this impotence is to be found in the material in the treatment of which the two arts strive to give expression to something. Before the art of painting had arrived at an understanding of the laws of expression by which it is bound, it attempted to escape this disadvantage. In old paintings little tags were hung from the mouths of the persons represented giving the speech, the expression of which in the picture the artist despaired of.

Perhaps an objection will here be raised challenging the assertion that the dream dispenses with the representation of logical relations. There are dreams in which the most complicated intellectual operations take place, in which proof and refutation are offered, puns and comparisons made, just as in waking thoughts. But here, too, appearances are deceitful; if the interpretation of such dreams is pursued, it is found that all of this is dream material, not the representation of intellectual activity in the dream. The content of the dream thoughts is reproduced by the apparent thinking of the dream, not the relations of the dream thoughts to one another, in the determination of which relations thinking consists. I shall give examples of this. But the thesis which is most easily established is that all speeches which occur in the dream, and which are expressly designated as such, are unchanged or only slightly modified copies of speeches which are likewise to be found in the recollections of the dream material. Often the speech is only an allusion to an event contained in the dream thoughts; the meaning of the dream is a quite different one.

I shall not deny, indeed, that there is also critical thought activity which does not merely repeat material from the dream thoughts and which takes part in the formation of the dream. I shall have to explain the influence of this factor at the close of this discussion. It will then become clear that this thought activity is evoked not by the dream thoughts, but by the dream itself after it is already finished in a certain sense.

We shall, therefore, consider it settled for the present that the logical relations among the dream thoughts do not enjoy any particular representation in the dream. For instance, where there is a contradiction in the dream, this is either a contradiction directed against the dream itself or a contradiction derived from the content of one of the dream thoughts; a contradiction in the dream corresponds to a contradiction among the dream thoughts only in a highly indirect manner.

But just as the art of painting finally succeeded in depicting in the represented persons, at least their intention in speaking—their tenderness, threatening attitude, warning mien, and the like—by other means than the dangling tag, so also the dream has found it possible to render account of a few of the logical relations among its dream thoughts by means of an appropriate modification of the peculiar method of dream representation. It will be found by experience that different dreams go to different lengths in taking this into consideration; while one dream entirely disregards the logical coherence of its material, another attempts to indicate it as completely as possible. In so doing the dream departs more or less widely from the subject-matter which it is to elaborate. The dream also takes a similarly varying attitude towards the temporal coherence of the dream thoughts, if such coherence has been established in the unconscious (as for example in the dream of Irma’s injection).

In the first place, the dream renders account of the connection which is undeniably present between all the parts of the dream thoughts by uniting this material in a single composition as a situation or process. It reproduces logical connection in the form of simultaneousness; in this case it acts something like the painter who groups together all the philosophers or poets into a picture of the school of Athens or of Parnassus, although these were never at once present in any hall or on any mountain top—though they do, however, form a unity from the point of view of reflective contemplation.

The dream carries out this method of representation in detail. Whenever it shows two elements close together, it vouches for a particularly intimate connection between those elements which correspond to them in the dream thoughts. It is as in our method of writing: to signifies that the two letters are to be pronounced as one syllable, while t with o after a free space shows that t is the last letter of one word and o the first letter of another. According to this, dream combinations are not made of arbitrary, completely incongruent elements of the dream material, but of elements that also have a somewhat intimate relation to one another in the dream thoughts.

For representing causal relation the dream has two methods, which are essentially reducible to one. The more frequent method, in cases, for example, where the dream thoughts are to the effect: “Because this was so and so, this and that must happen,” consists in making the premise an introductory dream and joining the conclusion to it in the form of the main dream. If my interpretation is correct, the sequence may also be reversed. That part of the dream which is more completely worked out always corresponds to the conclusion.

A female patient, whose dream I shall later give in full, once furnished me with a neat example of such a representation of causal relationship. The dream consisted of a short prologue and of a very elaborate but well organised dream composition, which might be entitled: “A flower of speech.” The prologue of the dream is as follows: She goes to the two maids in the kitchen and scolds them for taking so long to prepare “a little bite of food.” She also sees a great many coarse dishes standing in the kitchen, inverted so that the water may drop off them, and heaped up in a pile. The two maids go to fetch water, and must, as it were, step into a river, which reaches up to the house or into the yard.

Then follows the main dream, which begins as follows: She is descending from a high place, over balustrades that are curiously fashioned, and she is glad that her dress doesn’t get caught anywhere, &c. Now the introductory dream refers to the house of the lady’s parents. Probably she has often heard from her mother the words which are spoken in the kitchen. The piles of unwashed dishes are taken from an unpretentious earthenware shop which was located in the same house. The second part of this dream contains an allusion to the dreamer’s father, who always had a great deal to do with servant girls, and who later contracted a fatal disease during a flood—the house stood near the bank of a river. The thought which is concealed behind the introductory dream, then, is to this effect: “Because I was born in this house, under such limited and unlovely circumstances.” The main dream takes up the same thought, and presents it in a form that has been altered by the tendency to wish-fulfilment: “I am of exalted origin.” Properly then: “Because I was born in such low circumstances, my career has been so and so.”

As far as I can see, the partition of a dream into two unequal portions does not always signify a causal relation between the thoughts of the two portions. It often appears as though the same material were being presented in the two dreams from different points of view; or as though the two dreams have proceeded from two separated centres in the dream material and their contents overlap, so that the object which is the centre of one dream has served in the other as an allusion, and vice versa. But in a certain number of cases a division into shorter fore-dreams and longer subsequent dreams actually signifies a causal relation between the two portions. The other method of representing causal relation is used with less abundant material and consists in the change of one image in the dream, whether a person or a thing, into another. It is only in cases where we witness this change taking place in the dream that any causal relation is asserted to exist, not where we merely notice that one thing has taken the place of another. I said that both methods of representing causal relation are reducible to the same thing; in both cases causation is represented by a succession, now by the sequence of the dreams, now by the immediate transformation of one image into another. In the great majority of cases, of course, causal relation is not expressed at all, but is obliterated by the sequence of elements which is unavoidable in the dream process.

The dream is altogether unable to express the alternative, “either—or”; it is in the habit of taking both members of this alternative into one context, as though they were equally privileged. A classic example of this is contained in the dream of Irma’s injection. Its latent thoughts obviously mean: I am innocent of the continued presence of Irma’s pains; the fault rests either with her resistance to accepting the solution, or with the fact that she is living under unfavourable sexual conditions, which I am unable to change, or her pains are not of a hysteric nature at all, but organic. The dream, however, fulfils all these possibilities, which are almost exclusive, and is quite ready to extract from the dream-wish an additional fourth solution of this kind. After interpreting the dream I have therefore inserted the either—or in the sequence of the dream thoughts.

In the case where the dreamer finds occasion in telling the dream to use either—or: “It was either a garden or a living-room,” &c., it is not really an alternative which occurs in the dream thoughts, but an “and,” a simple addition. When we use either—or we are usually describing a characteristic of indistinctness belonging to an element of the dream which is still capable of being cleared up. The rule of interpretation for this case is as follows: The separate members of the alternative are to be treated as equals and connected by “and.” For instance, after waiting for a long time in vain for the address of my friend who is living in Italy, I dream that I receive a telegram which tells me this address. Upon the strip of telegraph paper I see printed in blue the following; the first word is blurred:

The second word, which sounds like an Italian name and which reminds me of our etymological discussions, also expresses my displeasure on account of the fact that my friend has kept his place of residence secret from me for so long a time; every member of the triple suggestion for the first word may be recognised in the course of analysis as a self-sufficient and equally well-justified starting point in the concatenation of ideas.

Each of the two variations has its own particular meaning, and leads us along particular paths in the interpretation of the dream. I had made the simplest kind of funeral arrangements, for I knew how the deceased thought about such matters. Other members of the family, however, did not approve of such puritanic simplicity; they thought we would have to be ashamed before the mourners. Hence one of the wordings of the dream requests the “shutting of one eye,” that is to say, that people should show consideration. The significance of the blurring, which we describe with an either—or, may here be seen with particular ease. The dream activity has not succeeded in constructing a unified but at the same time ambiguous wording for the dream thoughts. Thus the two main trains of thought are already distinguished even in the dream content.

The attitude of the dream towards the category of antithesis and contradiction is most striking. This category is unceremoniously neglected; the word “No” does not seem to exist for the dream. Antitheses are with peculiar preference reduced to unity or represented as one. The dream also takes the liberty of representing any element whatever by its desired opposite, so that it is at first impossible to tell about any element capable of having an opposite, whether it is to be taken negatively or positively, in the dream thoughts.[DU] In one of the last-mentioned dreams, whose introductory portion we have already interpreted (“because my parentage is such”), the dreamer descends over a balustrade and holds a blossoming twig in her hands. Since this picture suggests to her the angel in paintings of the Annunciation (her own name is Mary) carrying a lily stem in his hand, and the white-robed girls marching in the procession on Corpus Christi Day when the streets are decorated with green bows, the blossoming twig in the dream is very certainly an allusion to sexual innocence. But the twig is thickly studded with red blossoms, each one of which resembles a camelia. At the end of her walk, so the dream continues, the blossoms have already fallen considerably apart; then unmistakable allusions to menstruation follow. But this very twig which is carried like a lily and as though by an innocent girl, is also an allusion to Camille, who, as is known, always wore a white camelia, but a red one at the time of her menstruation.

The same blossoming twig (“the flower of maidenhood” in the songs about the miller’s daughter by Goethe) represents at once sexual innocence and its opposite. The same dream, also, which expresses the dreamer’s joy at having succeeded in passing through life unsullied, hints in several places (as at the falling-off of the blossom), at the opposite train of thought—namely, that she had been guilty of various sins against sexual purity (that is in her childhood). In the analysis of the dream we may clearly distinguish the two trains of thought, of which the comforting one seems to be superficial, the reproachful one more profound. The two are diametrically opposed to each other, and their like but contrasting elements have been represented by the identical dream elements.

The mechanism of dream formation is favourable in the highest degree to only one of the logical relations. This relation is that of similarity, correspondence, contiguity, “as though,” which is capable of being represented in the dream as no other can be, by the most varied expedients. The correspondences occurring in the dream, or cases of “as though,” are the chief points of support for the formation of dreams, and no inconsiderable part of the dream activity consists in creating new correspondences of this sort in cases where those which are already at hand are prevented by the censor of resistance from getting into the dream. The effort towards condensation shown by the dream activity assists in the representation of the relation of similarity.

Similarity, agreement, community, are quite generally expressed in the dream by concentration into a unity, which is either already found in the dream material or is newly created. The first case may be referred to as identification, the second as composition. Identification is used where the dream is concerned with persons, composition where things are the objects of unification; but compositions are also made from persons. Localities are often treated as persons.

Identification consists in giving representation in the dream content to only one of a number of persons who are connected by some common feature, while the second or the other persons seem to be suppressed as far as the dream is concerned. This one representative person in the dream enters into all the relations and situations which belong to itself or to the persons who are covered by it. In cases of composition, however, when this has to do with persons, there are already present in the dream image features which are characteristic of, but not common to, the persons in question, so that a new unity, a composite person, appears as the result of the union of these features. The composition itself may be brought about in various ways. Either the dream person bears the name of one of the persons to whom it refers—and then we know, in a manner which is quite analogous to knowledge in waking life, that this or that person is the one who is meant—while the visual features belong to another person; or the dream image itself is composed of visual features which in reality are shared by both. Instead of visual features, also, the part played by the second person may be represented by the mannerisms which are usually ascribed to him, the words which he usually speaks, or the situations in which he is usually imagined. In the latter method of characterisation the sharp distinction between identification and composition of persons begins to disappear. But it may also happen that the formation of such a mixed personality is unsuccessful.