Freud - Complete Works (100 page)
The Interpretation Of Dreams
596
‘A man tormented by
physical and mental suffering obtains from dreams what reality
denies him: health and happiness. So too in mental disease there
are bright pictures of happiness, grandeur, eminence and wealth.
The supposed possession of property and the imaginary fulfilment of
wishes - the withholding or destruction of which actually affords a
psychological basis for insanity - often constitute the chief
content of a delirium. A woman who has lost a loved child
experiences the joys of motherhood in her delirium; a man who has
lost his money believes himself immensely rich; a girl who has been
deceived feels that she is tenderly loved.’
(This passage from Radestock is
actually a summary of an acute observation made by Griesinger
(1861, 106), who shows quite clearly that ideas in dreams and in
psychoses have in common the characteristic of being
fulfilments
of wishes
. My own researches have taught me that in this fact
lies the key to a psychological theory of both dreams and
psychoses.)
‘The chief feature of
dreams and of insanity lies in their eccentric trains of thought
and their weakness of judgement.’ In both states we find an
over-valuation of the subject’s own mental achievements which
seems senseless to a sober view; the rapid sequence of ideas in
dreams is paralleled by the flight of ideas in psychoses. In both
there is a complete lack of sense of time. In dreams the
personality may be split - when, for instance, the dreamer’s
own knowledge is divided between two persons and when, in the
dream, the extraneous ego corrects the actual one. This is
precisely on a par with the splitting of the personality that is
familiar to us in hallucinatory paranoia; the dreamer too hears his
own thoughts pronounced by extraneous voices. Even chronic
delusional ideas have their analogy in stereotyped recurrent
pathological dreams (
le rêve obsédant
). - It
not infrequently happens that after recovering from a delirium
patients will say that the whole period of their illness seems to
them like a not unpleasant dream: indeed they will sometimes tell
us that even during the illness they have occasionally had a
feeling that they are only caught up in a dream - as is often the
case in dreams occurring in sleep.
The Interpretation Of Dreams
597
After all this, it is not
surprising that Radestock sums up his views, and those of many
others, by declaring that ‘insanity, an abnormal pathological
phenomenon, is to be regarded as an intensification of the
periodically recurrent normal condition of dreaming’. (Ibid.,
228.)
Krauss (1859, 270 f.) has sought
to establish what is perhaps a still more intimate connection
between dreams and insanity than can be demonstrated by an analogy
between these external manifestations. This connection he sees in
their aetiology or rather in the sources of their excitation. The
fundamental element common to the two states lies according to him,
as we have seen, in organically determined sensations, in
sensations derived from somatic stimuli, in the coenaesthesia which
is based upon contributions arising from all the organs. (Cf.
Peisse, 1857, 2, 21, quoted by Maury, 1878, 52.)
The indisputable analogy between
dreams and insanity, extending as it does down to their
characteristic details, is one of the most powerful props of the
medical theory of dream-life, which regards dreaming as a useless
and disturbing process and as the expression of a reduced activity
of the mind. Nevertheless it is not to be expected that we shall
find the ultimate explanation of dreams in the direction of mental
disorders; for the unsatisfactory state of our knowledge of the
origin of these latter conditions is generally recognized. It is
quite likely, on the contrary, that a modification of our attitude
towards dreams will at the same time affect our views upon the
internal mechanism of mental disorders and that we shall be working
towards an explanation of the psychoses while we are endeavouring
to throw some light on the mystery of dreams.
The Interpretation Of Dreams
598
POSTSCRIPT, 1909
The fact that I have not extended
my account of the literature dealing with the problems of dreams to
cover the period between the first and second editions of this book
stands in need of a justification. It may strike the reader as an
unsatisfactory one, but for me it was none the less decisive. The
motives which led me to give any account at all of the way in which
earlier writers have dealt with dreams were exhausted with the
completion of this introductory chapter; to continue the task would
have cost me an extraordinary effort - and the result would have
been of very little use or instruction. For the intervening nine
years have produced nothing new or valuable either in factual
material or in opinions that might throw light on the subject. In
the majority of publications that have appeared during the interval
my work has remained unmentioned and unconsidered. It has, of
course, received least attention from those who are engaged in what
is described as ‘research’ into dreams, and who have
thus provided a shining example of the repugnance to learning
anything new which is characteristic of men of science. In the
ironical words of Anatole France, ‘
les savants ne sont pas
curieux
’. If there were such a thing in science as a
right to retaliate, I should certainly be justified in my turn in
disregarding the literature that has been issued since the
publication of this book. The few notices of it that have appeared
in scientific periodicals show so much
lack
of understanding
and so much
mis
understanding that my only reply to the
critics would be to suggest their reading the book again - or
perhaps, indeed, merely to suggest their reading it.
A large number of dreams have
been published and analysed in accordance with my directions in
papers by physicians who have decided to adopt the psycho-analytic
therapeutic procedure, as well as by other authors. In so far as
these writings have gone beyond a mere confirmation of my views I
have included their findings in the course of my exposition. I have
added a second bibliography at the end of the volume containing a
list of the most important works that have appeared since this book
was first published. The extensive monograph on dreams by Sante de
Sanctis (1899), of which a German translation appeared soon after
its issue, was published almost simultaneously with my
Interpretation of Dreams
, so that neither I nor the Italian
author was able to comment upon each other’s work. I have
unfortunately been unable to escape the conclusion that his
painstaking volume is totally deficient in ideas- so much so, in
fact, that it would not even lead one to suspect the existence of
the problems with which I have dealt.
The Interpretation Of Dreams
599
Only two publications require to
be mentioned which come near to my own treatment of the problems of
dreams. Hermann Swoboda (1904), a youthful philosopher, has
undertaken the task of extending to psychical events the discovery
of a biological periodicity (in 23-day and 28-day periods) made by
Wilhelm Fliess. In the course of his highly imaginative work he has
endeavoured to use this key for the solution, among other problems,
of the riddle of dreams. His findings would seem to underestimate
the significance of dreams; the subject matter of a dream, on his
view, is to be explained as an assemblage of all the memories
which, on the night on which it is dreamt, complete one of the
biological periods, whether for the first or for the
n
th
time. A personal communication from the author led me at first to
suppose that he himself no longer took this theory seriously, but
it seems that this was a mistaken conclusion on my part. At a later
stage I shall report upon some observations which I made in
connection with Swoboda’s suggestion but which led me to no
convincing conclusion. I was the more pleased when, in an
unexpected quarter, I made the chance discovery of a view of dreams
which coincides entirely with the core of my own theory. It is
impossible, for chronological reasons, that the statement in
question can have been influenced by my book. I must therefore hail
it as the single discoverable instance in the literature of the
subject of an independent thinker who is in agreement with the
essence of my theory of dreams. The book which contains the passage
upon dreaming which I have in mind appeared in its second edition
in 1900 under the title of
Phantasien eines Realisten
by
‘Lynkeus’.¹
POSTSCRIPT, 1914
The preceding plea of
justification was written in 1909. I am bound to admit that since
then the situation has changed; my contribution to the
interpretation of dreams is no longer neglected by writers on the
subject. The new state of affairs, however, has now made it quite
out of the question for me to extend my previous account of the
literature.
The Interpretation of Dreams
has raised a whole
series of fresh considerations and problems which have been
discussed in a great variety of ways. I cannot give an account of
these works, however, before I have expounded those views of my own
on which they are based. I have therefore dealt with whatever seems
to me of value in the latest literature at its appropriate place in
the course of the discussion which now follows.
¹
[
Footnote added
1930:] Cf. my paper
on Josef Popper-Lynkeus and the theory of dreams
(1923
f
).
The Interpretation Of Dreams
600
CHAPTER II
THE
METHOD OF INTERPRETING DREAMS:
AN
ANALYSIS OF A SPECIMEN DREAM
The title that I have chosen for my work makes
plain which of the traditional approaches to the problem of dreams
I am inclined to follow. The aim which I have set before myself is
to show that dreams are capable of being interpreted; and any
contributions I may be able to make towards the solution of the
problems dealt with in the last chapter will only arise as by
products in the course of carrying out my proper task. My
presumption that dreams can be interpreted at once puts me in
opposition to the ruling theory of dreams and in fact to every
theory of dreams with the single exception of Scherner’s; for
‘interpreting’ a dream implies assigning a
‘meaning’ to it - that is, replacing it by something
which fits into the chain of our mental acts as a link having a
validity and importance equal to the rest. As we have seen, the
scientific theories of dreams leave no room for any problem of
interpreting them, since in their view a dream is not a mental act
at all, but a somatic process signalizing its occurrence by
indications registered in the mental apparatus. Lay opinion has
taken a different attitude throughout the ages. It has exercised
its indefeasible right to behave inconsistently; and, though
admitting that dreams are unintelligible and absurd, it cannot
bring itself to declare that they have no significance at all. Led
by some obscure feeling, it seems to assume that, in spite of
everything, every dream has a meaning, though a hidden one, that
dreams are designed to take the place of some other process of
thought, and that we have only to undo the substitution correctly
in order to arrive at this hidden meaning.
Thus the lay world has from the
earliest times concerned itself with ‘interpreting’
dreams and in its attempts to do so it has made use of two
essentially different methods.
The Interpretation Of Dreams
601
The first of these procedures
considers the content of the dream as a whole and seeks to replace
it by another content which is intelligible and in certain respects
analogous to the original one. This is
‘
symbolic
’ dream-interpreting; and it inevitably
breaks down when faced by dreams which are not merely
unintelligible but also confused. An example of this procedure is
to be seen in the explanation of Pharaoh’s dream propounded
by Joseph in the Bible. The seven fat kine followed by seven lean
kine that ate up the fat kine - all this was a symbolic substitute
for a prophecy of seven years of famine in the land of Egypt which
should consume all that was brought forth in the seven years of
plenty. Almost of the artificial dreams constructed by imaginative
writers are designed for a symbolic interpretation of this sort:
they reproduce the writer’s thoughts under a disguise which
is regarded as harmonizing with the recognized characteristics of
dreams.¹ The idea of dreams being chiefly concerned with the
future and being able to foretell it - a remnant of the old
prophetic significance of dreams - provides a reason for
transposing the meaning of the dream, when it has been arrived at
by symbolic interpretation, into the future tense. It is of course
impossible to give instructions upon the
method
of arriving
at a symbolic interpretation. Success must be a question of hitting
on a clever idea, of direct intuition, and for that reason it was
possible for dream-interpretation by means of symbolism to be
exalted into an artistic activity dependent on the possession of
peculiar gifts.²
¹
[
Footnote added
1909:] I found by
chance in
Gradiva
, a story written by Wilhelm Jensen, a
number of artificial dreams which were perfectly correctly
constructed and could be interpreted just as though they had not
been invented but had been dreamt by real people. In reply to an
enquiry, the author confirmed the fact that he had no knowledge of
my theory of dreams. I have argued that the agreement between my
researches and this writer’s creations is evidence in favour
of the correctness of my analysis of dreams. (See Freud,
1907
a
.)
²
[
Footnote added
1914:] Aristotle
remarked in this connection that the best interpreter of dreams was
the man who could best grasp similarities; for dream-pictures, like
pictures on water, are pulled out of shape by movement, and the
most successful interpreter is the man who can detect the truth
from the misshapen picture. (Büchenschütz, 1868,
65.)
The Interpretation Of Dreams
602
The second of the two popular
methods of interpreting dreams is far from making any such claims.
It might be described as the ‘
decoding
’ method,
since it treats dreams as a kind of cryptography in which each sign
can be translated into another sign having a known meaning, in
accordance with a fixed key. Suppose, for instance, that I have
dreamt of a letter and also of a funeral. If I consult a
‘dream-book’, I find that ‘letter’ must be
translated by ‘trouble’ and ‘funeral’ by
‘betrothal’. It then remains for me to link together
the key words which I have deciphered in this way and, once more,
to transpose the result into the future tense. An interesting
modification of the process of decoding, which to some extent
corrects the purely mechanical character of its method of
transposing, is to be found in the book written upon the
interpretation of dreams by Artemidorus of Daldis.¹ This
method takes into account not only the content of the dream but
also the character and circumstances of the dreamer; so that the
same dream-element will have a different meaning for a rich man, a
married man or, let us say, an orator, from what it has for a poor
man, a bachelor or a merchant. The essence of the decoding
procedure, however, lies in the fact that the work of
interpretation is not brought to bear on the dream as a whole but
on each portion of the dream’s content independently, as
though the dream were a geological conglomerate in which each
fragment of rock required a separate assessment. There can be no
question that the invention of the decoding method of
interpretation was suggested by disconnected and confused
dreams.²
¹
[
Footnote added
1914:] Artemidorus
of Daldis, who was probably born at the beginning of the second
century A.D., has left us the most complete and painstaking study
of dream-interpretation as practised in the Graeco-Roman world. As
Theodor Gomperz (1866, 7 f.) points out, he insisted on the
importance of basing the interpretation of dreams on observation
and experience, and made a rigid distinction between his own art
and others that were illusory. The principle of his interpretative
art, according to Gomperz, is identical with magic, the principle
of association. A thing in a dream means what it recalls to the
mind - to the dream-interpreter’s mind, it need hardly be
said. An insuperable source of arbitrariness and uncertainty arises
from the fact that the dream-element may recall various things to
the interpreter’s mind and may recall something different to
different interpreters. The technique which I describe in the pages
that follow differs in one essential respect from the ancient
method: it imposes the task of interpretation upon the dreamer
himself. It is not concerned with what occurs to the
interpreter
in connection with a particular element of the
dream, but with what occurs to the
dreamer
. - Recent
reports, however, from a missionary, Father Tfinkdji (1913), show
that modern dream-interpreters in the East also make free use of
the dreamer’s collaboration. He writes as follows of
dream-interpreters among the Arabs of Mesopotamia: ‘Pour
interprêter exactement un songe, les oniromanciens les plus
habiles s’informent de ceux qui les consultent de toutes les
circonstances qu’ils regardent nécessaires pour la
bonne explication. . . . En un mot, nos
oniromanciens ne laissent aucune circonstance leur échapper
et ne donnent l’interprétation désirée
avant d’avoir parfaitement saisi et reçu toutes les
interrogations désirables.’ [‘In order to give a
precise interpretation of a dream, the most skilful dream-diviners
find out from those who consult them all the circumstances which
they consider essential in order to arrive at a right
explanation. . . . In short, these dream-diviners do
not allow a single point to escape them and only give their
interpretation after they have completely mastered the replies to
all the necessary enquiries.’] Among these enquiries are
habitually included questions as to the dreamer’s closest
family relations - his parents, wife and children - as well as such
a typical formula as: ‘Habuistine in hac nocte copulam
conjugam ante vel post somnium?’ [‘Did you copulate
with your wife that night before or after you had the
dream?’] -’L’idée dominante dans
l’interprétation des songes consiste à
expliquer le rêve par son opposée.’ [‘The
principal idea in interpreting dreams lies in explaining a dream by
its opposite.’]
²
[
Footnote added
1909:] Dr. Alfred
Robitsek has pointed out to me that the oriental
‘dream-books’ (of which ours are wretched imitations)
base the greater number of their interpretations of dream-elements
upon similarity of sounds and resemblance between words. The fact
that these connections inevitably disappear in translation accounts
for the unintelligibility of the renderings in our own popular
dream-books. The extraordinarily important part played by punning
and verbal quibbles in the ancient civilizations of the East may be
studied in the writings of Hugo Winckler. - [
Added
1911:]
The nicest instance of a dream-interpretation which has reached us
from ancient times is based on a play upon words. It is told by
Artemidorus: ‘I think too that Aristander gave a most happy
interpretation to Alexander of Macedon when he had surrounded Tyre
and was besieging it but was feeling uneasy and disturbed because
of the length of time the siege was taking. Alexander dreamt he saw
a satyr dancing on his shield. Aristander happened to be in the
neighbourhood of Tyre, in attendance on the king during his Syrian
campaign. By dividing the word for satyr into
σά
and
τύρος
he encouraged the king to press home
the siege so that he became master of the city.’
(
σά
Τύρος
= Tyre is thine.) - Indeed, dreams are so
closely related to linguistic expression that Ferenczi has truly
remarked that every tongue has its own dream-language. It is
impossible as a rule to translate a dream into a foreign language
and this is equally true, I fancy, of a book such as the present
one. [
Added
1930:] Nevertheless, Dr. A. A. Brill of New
York, and others after him, have succeeded in translating
The
Interpretation of Dreams
.
The Interpretation Of Dreams
603
It cannot be doubted for a moment
that neither of the two popular procedures for interpreting dreams
can be employed for a scientific treatment of the subject. The
symbolic method is restricted in its application and incapable of
being laid down on general lines. In the case of the decoding
method everything depends on the trustworthiness of the
‘key’ - the dream-book, and of this we have no
guarantee. Thus one might feel tempted to agree with the
philosophers and the psychiatrists and, like them, rule out the
problem of dream-interpretation as a purely fanciful
task.¹
But I have been taught better. I
have been driven to realize that here once more we have one of
those not infrequent cases in which an ancient and jealously held
popular belief seems to be nearer the truth than the judgement of
the prevalent science of today. I must affirm that dreams really
have a meaning and that a scientific procedure for interpreting
them is possible.
My knowledge of that procedure
was reached in the following manner. I have been engaged for many
years (with a therapeutic aim in view) in unravelling certain
psychopathological structures - hysterical phobias, obsessional
ideas, and so on. I have been doing so, in fact, ever since I
learnt from an important communication by Josef Breuer that as
regards these structures (which are looked on as pathological
symptoms) unravelling these coincides with removing them. (Cf.
Breuer and Freud, 1895.) If a pathological idea of this sort
can be traced back to the elements in the patient’s mental
life from which it originated, it simultaneously crumbles away and
the patient is freed from it. Considering the impotence of our
other therapeutic efforts and the puzzling nature of these
disorders, I felt tempted to follow the path marked out by Breuer,
in spite of every difficulty, till a complete explanation was
reached. I shall have on another occasion to report at length upon
the form finally taken by this procedure and the results of my
labours. It was in the course of these psycho-analytic studies that
I came upon dream-interpretation. My patients were pledged to
communicate to me every idea or thought that occurred to them in
connection with some particular subject; amongst other things they
told me their dreams and so taught me that a dream can be inserted
into the psychical chain that has to be traced backwards in the
memory from a pathological idea. It was then only a short step to
treating the dream itself as a symptom and to applying to dreams
the method of interpretation that had been worked out for
symptoms.