The Interpretation of Dreams

CN. W. Stekel, Die Sprache des Traumes, 1911.

CO. Alf. Adler, “Der Psychische Hermaphroditismus im Leben und in der Neurose,” Fortschritte der Medizin, 1910, No. 16, and later works in the Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, 1, 1910–1911.

CP. I have published a typical example of such a veiled Oedipus dream in No. 1 of the Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse; another with a detailed analysis was reported in the same journal, No. IV., by Otto Rank. Indeed the ancients were not unfamiliar with the symbolic interpretation of the open Oedipus dream (see O. Rank,[108] p. 534); thus a dream of sexual relations with the mother has been transmitted to us by Julius Cæsar which the oneiroscopists interpreted as a favourable omen for taking possession of the earth (Mother-earth). It is also known that the oracle declared to the Tarquinii that that one of them would become ruler of Rome who should first kiss the mother (osculum, matri tulerit), which Brutus conceived as referring to the mother-earth (terram osculo contigit, scilicet quod ea communia mater omnium mortalium esset, Livius, I., lxi.). These myths and interpretations point to a correct psychological knowledge. I have found that persons who consider themselves preferred or favoured by their mothers manifest in life that confidence in themselves and that firm optimism which often seems heroic and brings about real success by force.

CQ. It is only of late that I have learned to value the significance of fancies and unconscious thoughts about life in the womb. They contain the explanation of the curious fear felt by so many people of being buried alive, as well as the profoundest unconscious reason for the belief in a life after death which represents nothing but a projection into the future of this mysterious life before birth. The act of birth, moreover, is the first experience with fear, and is thus the source and model of the emotion of fear.

CR. For such a dream see Pfister: “Ein Fall von Psychoanalytischer Seelensorge und Seelenheilung,” Evangelische Freiheit, 1909. Concerning the symbol of “saving” see my lecture, “Die Zukünftigen Chancen der psychoanalytischen Therapie,” Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, No. I., 1910. Also “Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens, I. Ueber einen besonderen Typus der objektwahl beim Manne,” Jahrbuch, Bleuler-Freud, vol. ii., 1910.

CS. Cf. the works of Bleuler and of his pupils Maeder, Abraham, and others of the Zürich school upon symbolism, and of those authors who are not physicians (Kleinpaul and others), to which they refer.

CT. In this country the President, the Governor, and the Mayor often represent the father in the dream. (Translator.)

CU. I may here repeat what I have said in another place (“Die Zukünftigen Chancen der psychoanalytischen Therapie,” Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, I., No. 1 and 2, 1910): “Some time ago I learned that a psychologist who is unfamiliar with our work remarked to one of my friends that we are surely over-estimating the secret sexual significance of dreams. He stated that his most frequent dream was of climbing a stairway, and that there was surely nothing sexual behind this. Our attention having been called to this objection, we directed our investigations to the occurrence of stairways, stairs, and ladders in the dream, and we soon ascertained that stairs (or anything analogous to them) represent a definite symbol of coitus. The basis for this comparison is not difficult to find; under rhythmic intervals and with increasing difficulty in breathing one reaches to a height, and may come down again in a few rapid jumps. Thus the rhythm of coitus is recognisable in climbing stairs. Let us not forget to consider the usage of language. It shows us that the “climbing” or “mounting” is, without further addition, used as a substitutive designation of the sexual act. In French the step of the stairway is called “la marche”; “un vieux marcheur” corresponds exactly to our “an old climber.””

CV. In this country where the word “necktie” is almost exclusively used, the translator has also found it to be a symbol of a burdensome woman from whom the dreamer longs to be freed—“necktie—something tied to my neck like a heavy weight—my fiancée,” are the associations from the dream of a man who eventually broke his marriage engagement.

CW. In spite of all the differences between Scherner’s conception of dream symbolism and the one developed here, I must still assert that Scherner[58] should be recognised as the true discoverer of symbolism in dreams, and that the experience of psychoanalysis has brought his book into honourable repute after it had been considered fantastic for about fifty years.

CX. From “Nachträge zur Traumdeutung,” Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, I., No. 5 and 6, 1911.

CY. “Beiträge zur Traumdeutung,” Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyt. und psychop. Forsch., Bd. I., 1909, p. 473. Here also (p. 475) a dream is reported in which a hat with a feather standing obliquely in the middle symbolises the (impotent) man.

CZ. Cf.Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, I.

DA. Or chapel-vagina.

DB. Symbol of coitus.

DC. Mons veneris.

DD. Crines pubis.

DE. Demons in cloaks and capucines are, according to the explanation of a man versed in the subject, of a phallic nature.

DF. The two halves of the scrotum.

DG. See Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, vol. i., p. 2.

DH. This Hebrew word is well known in German-speaking countries, even among non-Jews, and signifies an unlucky, awkward person. (Translator.)

DI. In estimating this description of the author one may recall the significance of stairway dreams, referred to on p. 246.

DJ. The fantastic nature of the situation relating to the nurse of the dreamer is shown by the objectively ascertained circumstance that the nurse in this case was his mother. Furthermore, I may call attention to the regret of the young man in the anecdote (p. 172), that he had not taken better advantage of his opportunity with the nurse as probably the source of the present dream.

DK. This is the real inciter of the dream.

DL. By way of supplement. Such books are poison to a young girl. She herself in youth had drawn much information from forbidden books.

DM. A further train of thought leads to Penthesileia by the same author: cruelty towards her lover.

DN. Given by translator as author’s example could not be translated.

DO. The same analysis and synthesis of syllables—a veritable chemistry of syllables—serves us for many a jest in waking life. “What is the cheapest method of obtaining silver? You go to a field where silver-berries are growing and pick them; then the berries are eliminated and the silver remains in a free state.” The first person who read and criticised this book made the objection to me—which other readers will probably repeat—“that the dreamer often appears too witty.” That is true, as long as it applies to the dreamer; it involves a condemnation only when its application is extended to the interpreter of the dream. In waking reality I can make very little claim to the predicate “witty”; if my dreams appear witty, this is not the fault of my individuality, but of the peculiar psychological conditions under which the dream is fabricated, and is intimately connected with the theory of wit and the comical. The dream becomes witty because the shortest and most direct way to the expression of its thoughts is barred for it: the dream is under constraint. My readers may convince themselves that the dreams of my patients give the impression of being witty (attempting to be witty), in the same degree and in a greater than my own. Nevertheless this reproach impelled me to compare the technique of wit with the dream activity, which I have done in a book published in 1905, on Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious. (Author.)

DP. Lasker died of progressive paralysis, that is of the consequences of an infection caught from a woman (lues); Lasalle, as is well known, was killed in a duel on account of a lady.

DQ. In the case of a young man who was suffering from obsessions, but whose intellectual functions were intact and highly developed, I recently found the only exception to this rule. The speeches which occurred in his dreams did not originate in speeches which he had heard or had made himself, but corresponded to the undisfigured wording of his obsessive thoughts, which only came to his consciousness in a changed state while he was awake.

DR. Psychic intensity, value, and emphasis due to the interest of an idea are, of course, to be kept distinct from sensational intensity, and from intensity of that which is conceived.

DS. Since I consider this reference of dream disfigurement to the censor as the essence of my dream theory, I here insert the latter portion of a story “Traumen wie Wachen” from Phantasien eines Realisten, by Lynkus, Vienna, (second edition, 1900), in which I find this chief feature of my theory reproduced:—

“Concerning a man who possesses the remarkable quality of never dreaming nonsense....”

“Your marvellous characteristic of dreaming as you wake is based upon your virtues, upon your goodness, your justice, and your love for truth; it is the moral clearness of your nature which makes everything about you intelligible.”

“But if you think the matter over carefully,” replied the other, “I almost believe that all people are created as I am, and that no human being ever dreams nonsense! A dream which is so distinctly remembered that it can be reproduced, which is therefore no dream of delirium, always has a meaning; why, it cannot be otherwise! For that which is in contradiction with itself can never be grouped together as a whole. The fact that time and space are often thoroughly shaken up detracts nothing from the real meaning of the dream, because neither of them has had any significance whatever for its essential contents. We often do the same thing in waking life; think of the fairy-tale, of many daring and profound phantastic creations, about which only an ignorant person would say: ‘That is nonsense! For it is impossible.’”

“If it were only always possible to interpret dreams correctly, as you have just done with mine!” said the friend.

“That is certainly not an easy task, but the dreamer himself ought always to succeed in doing it with a little concentration of attention.... You ask why it is generally impossible? Your dreams seem to conceal something secret, something unchaste of a peculiar and higher nature, a certain mystery in your nature which cannot easily be revealed by thought; and it is for that reason that your dreaming seems so often to be without meaning, or even to be a contradiction. But in the profoundest sense this is by no means the case; indeed it cannot be true at all, for it is always the same person, whether he is asleep or awake.”

DT. I have since given the complete analysis and synthesis of two dreams in the Bruchstueck einer Hysterieanalyse, 1905.

DU. From a work of K. Abel, Der Gegensinn der Urworte, 1884 (see my review of it in the Bleuler-Freud Jahrbuch, II., 1910), I learned with surprise a fact which is confirmed by other philologists, that the oldest languages behaved in this regard quite like the dream. They originally had only one word for both extremes in a series of qualities or activities (strong—weak, old—young, far—near, to tie—to separate), and formed separate designations for the two extremes only secondarily through slight modifications of the common primitive word. Abel demonstrated these relationships with rare exceptions in the old Egyptian, and he was able to show distinct remnants of the same development in the Semitic and Indo-Germanic languages.

DV. If I do not know behind which of the persons which occur in the dream I am to look for my ego, I observe the following rule: That person in the dream who is subject to an emotion which I experience while asleep, is the one that conceals my ego.