Part 2 (1/2)
The sending away of the little one, of the genital, in the first dream therefore also refers to the threatened castration. Finally she blames her mother for not having been born a boy.
That ”being run over” symbolizes s.e.xual intercourse would not be evident from this dream if we were not sure of it from many other sources.
3. Representation of the genital by structures, stairways, and shafts. (Dream of a young man inhibited by a father complex.) ”He is taking a walk with his father in a place which is surely the Prater, for the Rotunda may be seen in front of which there is a small front structure to which is attached a captive balloon; the balloon, however, seems quite collapsed. His father asks him what this is all for; he is surprised at it, but he explains it to his father. They come into a court in which lies a large sheet of tin. His father wants to pull off a big piece of this, but first looks around to see if any one is watching. He tells his father that all he needs to do is to speak to the watchman, and then he can take without any further difficulty as much as he wants to. From this court a stairway leads down into a shaft, the walls of which are softly upholstered something like a leather pocketbook. At the end of this shaft there is a longer platform, and then a new shaft begins....”
a.n.a.lysis. This dream belongs to a type of patient which is not favorable from a therapeutic point of view. They follow in the a.n.a.lysis without offering any resistances whatever up to a certain point, but from that point on they remain almost inaccessible. This dream he almost a.n.a.lyzed himself. ”The Rotunda,” he said, ”is my genital, the captive balloon in front is my p.e.n.i.s, about the weakness of which I have worried.” We must, however, interpret in greater detail; the Rotunda is the b.u.t.tock which is regularly a.s.sociated by the child with the genital, the smaller front structure is the s.c.r.o.t.u.m. In the dream his father asks him what this is all for--that is, he asks him about the purpose and arrangement of the genitals. It is quite evident that this state of affairs should be turned around, and that he should be the questioner. As such a questioning on the side of the father has never taken place in reality, we must conceive the dream thought as a wish, or take it conditionally, as follows: ”If I had only asked my father for s.e.xual enlightenment.” The continuation of this thought we shall soon find in another place.
The court in which the tin sheet is spread out is not to be conceived symbolically in the first instance, but originates from his father's place of business. For discretionary reasons I have inserted the tin for another material in which the father deals, without, however, changing anything in the verbal expression of the dream. The dreamer had entered his father's business, and had taken a terrible dislike to the questionable practices upon which profit mainly depends. Hence the continuation of the above dream thought (”if I had only asked him”) would be: ”He would have deceived me just as he does his customers.” For the pulling off, which serves to represent commercial dishonesty, the dreamer himself gives a second explanation--namely, onanism. This is not only entirely familiar to us, but agrees very well with the fact that the secrecy of onanism is expressed by its opposite (”Why one can do it quite openly”). It, moreover, agrees entirely with our expectations that the onanistic activity is again put off on the father, just as was the questioning in the first scene of the dream. The shaft he at once interprets as the v.a.g.i.n.a by referring to the soft upholstering of the walls. That the act of coition in the v.a.g.i.n.a is described as a going down instead of in the usual way as a going up, I have also found true in other instances[2].
The details that at the end of the first shaft there is a longer platform and then a new shaft, he himself explains biographically. He had for some time consorted with women s.e.xually, but had then given it up because of inhibitions and now hopes to be able to take it up again with the aid of the treatment. The dream, however, becomes indistinct toward the end, and to the experienced interpreter it becomes evident that in the second scene of the dream the influence of another subject has begun to a.s.sert itself; in this his father's business and his dishonest practices signify the first v.a.g.i.n.a represented as a shaft so that one might think of a reference to the mother.
4. The male genital symbolized by persons and the female by a landscape.
(Dream of a woman of the lower cla.s.s, whose husband is a policeman, reported by B. Dattner.) ... Then some one broke into the house and anxiously called for a policeman. But he went with two tramps by mutual consent into a church,[3] to which led a great many stairs;[4] behind the church there was a mountain,[5] on top of which a dense forest.[6] The policeman was furnished with a helmet, a gorget, and a cloak.[7] The two vagrants, who went along with the policeman quite peaceably, had tied to their loins sack-like ap.r.o.ns.[8] A road led from the church to the mountain. This road was overgrown on each side with gra.s.s and brushwood, which became thicker and thicker as it reached the height of the mountain, where it spread out into quite a forest.
5. A stairway dream.
(Reported and interpreted by Otto Rank.) For the following transparent pollution dream, I am indebted to the same colleague who furnished us with the dental-irritation dream.
”I am running down the stairway in the stair-house after a little girl, whom I wish to punish because she has done something to me. At the bottom of the stairs some one held the child for me. (A grown-up woman?) I grasp it, but do not know whether I have hit it, for I suddenly find myself in the middle of the stairway where I practice coitus with the child (in the air as it were). It is really no coitus, I only rub my genital on her external genital, and in doing this I see it very distinctly, as distinctly as I see her head which is lying sideways. During the s.e.xual act I see hanging to the left and above me (also as if in the air) two small pictures, landscapes, representing a house on a green. On the smaller one my surname stood in the place where the painter's signature should be; it seemed to be intended for my birthday present. A small sign hung in front of the pictures to the effect that cheaper pictures could also be obtained. I then see myself very indistinctly lying in bed, just as I had seen myself at the foot of the stairs, and I am awakened by a feeling of dampness which came from the pollution.”
Interpretation. The dreamer had been in a book-store on the evening of the day of the dream, where, while he was waiting, he examined some pictures which were exhibited, which represented motives similar to the dream pictures. He stepped nearer to a small picture which particularly took his fancy in order to see the name of the artist, which, however, was quite unknown to him.
Later in the same evening, in company, he heard about a Bohemian servant-girl who boasted that her illegitimate child ”was made on the stairs.” The dreamer inquired about the details of this unusual occurrence, and learned that the servant-girl went with her lover to the home of her parents, where there was no opportunity for s.e.xual relations, and that the excited man performed the act on the stairs. In witty allusion to the mischievous expression used about wine-adulterers, the dreamer remarked, ”The child really grew on the cellar steps.”
These experiences of the day, which are quite prominent in the dream content, were readily reproduced by the dreamer. But he just as readily reproduced an old fragment of infantile recollection which was also utilized by the dream. The stair-house was the house in which he had spent the greatest part of his childhood, and in which he had first become acquainted with s.e.xual problems. In this house he used, among other things, to slide down the banister astride which caused him to become s.e.xually excited. In the dream he also comes down the stairs very rapidly--so rapidly that, according to his own distinct a.s.sertions, he hardly touched the individual stairs, but rather ”flew” or ”slid down,” as we used to say. Upon reference to this infantile experience, the beginning of the dream seems to represent the factor of s.e.xual excitement. In the same house and in the adjacent residence the dreamer used to play pugnacious games with the neighboring children, in which he satisfied himself just as he did in the dream.
If one recalls from Freud's investigation of s.e.xual symbolism[9] that in the dream stairs or climbing stairs almost regularly symbolizes coitus, the dream becomes clear. Its motive power as well as its effect, as is shown by the pollution, is of a purely libidinous nature. s.e.xual excitement became aroused during the sleeping state (in the dream this is represented by the rapid running or sliding down the stairs) and the s.a.d.i.s.tic thread in this is, on the basis of the pugnacious playing, indicated in the pursuing and overcoming of the child. The libidinous excitement becomes enhanced and urges to s.e.xual action (represented in the dream by the grasping of the child and the conveyance of it to the middle of the stairway). Up to this point the dream would be one of pure, s.e.xual symbolism, and obscure for the unpracticed dream interpreter. But this symbolic gratification, which would have insured undisturbed sleep, was not sufficient for the powerful libidinous excitement. The excitement leads to an o.r.g.a.s.m, and thus the whole stairway symbolism is unmasked as a subst.i.tute for coitus. Freud lays stress on the rhythmical character of both actions as one of the reasons for the s.e.xual utilization of the stairway symbolism, and this dream especially seems to corroborate this, for, according to the express a.s.sertion of the dreamer, the rhythm of a s.e.xual act was the most p.r.o.nounced feature in the whole dream.
Still another remark concerning the two pictures, which, aside from their real significance, also have the value of ”Weibsbilder” (literally _woman-pictures_, but idiomatically _women_). This is at once shown by the fact that the dream deals with a big and a little picture, just as the dream content presents a big (grown up) and a little girl. That cheap pictures could also be obtained points to the prost.i.tution complex, just as the dreamer's surname on the little picture and the thought that it was intended for his birthday, point to the parent complex (to be born on the stairway--to be conceived in coitus).
The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees himself on the staircase landing lying in bed and feeling wet, seems to go back into childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its prototype in similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting.
6. A modified stair-dream.
To one of my very nervous patients, who was an abstainer, whose fancy was fixed on his mother, and who repeatedly dreamed of climbing stairs accompanied by his mother, I once remarked that moderate masturbation would be less harmful to him than enforced abstinence. This influence provoked the following dream: ”His piano teacher reproaches him for neglecting his piano-playing, and for not practicing the Etudes of Moscheles and Clementi's Gradus ad Parna.s.sum.” In relation to this he remarked that the Gradus is only a stairway, and that the piano itself is only a stairway as it has a scale.
It is correct to say that there is no series of a.s.sociations which cannot be adapted to the representation of s.e.xual facts. I conclude with the dream of a chemist, a young man, who has been trying to give up his habit of masturbation by replacing it with intercourse with women.
_Preliminary statement._--On the day before the dream he had given a student instruction concerning Grignard's reaction, in which magnesium is to be dissolved in absolutely pure ether under the catalytic influence of iodine. Two days before, there had been an explosion in the course of the same reaction, in which the investigator had burned his hand.
Dream I. _He is to make phenylmagnesium-bromid; he sees the apparatus with particular clearness, but he has subst.i.tuted himself for the magnesium. He is now in a curious swaying att.i.tude. He keeps repeating to himself, ”This is the right thing, it is working, my feet are beginning to dissolve and my knees are getting soft.” Then he reaches down and feels for his feet, and meanwhile (he does not know how) he takes his legs out of the crucible, and then again he says to himself, ”That cannot be.... Yes, it must be so, it has been done correctly.” Then he partially awakens, and repeats the dream to himself, because he wants to tell it to me. He is distinctly afraid of the a.n.a.lysis of the dream. He is much excited during this semi-sleeping state, and repeats continually, ”Phenyl, phenyl.”_ II. _He is in ... ing with his whole family; at half-past eleven. He is to be at the Schottenthor for a rendezvous with a certain lady, but he does not wake up until half-past eleven. He says to himself, ”It is too late now; when you get there it will be half-past twelve.” The next instant he sees the whole family gathered about the table--his mother and the servant girl with the soup-tureen with particular clearness. Then he says to himself, ”Well, if we are eating already, I certainly can't get away.”_ a.n.a.lysis: He feels sure that even the first dream contains a reference to the lady whom he is to meet at the rendezvous (the dream was dreamed during the night before the expected meeting). The student to whom he gave the instruction is a particularly unpleasant fellow; he had said to the chemist: ”That isn't right,” because the magnesium was still unaffected, and the latter answered as though he did not care anything about it: ”It certainly isn't right.” He himself must be this student; he is as indifferent towards his a.n.a.lysis as the student is towards his synthesis; the He in the dream, however, who accomplishes the operation, is myself. How unpleasant he must seem to me with his indifference towards the success achieved!
Moreover, he is the material with which the a.n.a.lysis (synthesis) is made. For it is a question of the success of the treatment. The legs in the dream recall an impression of the previous evening. He met a lady at a dancing lesson whom he wished to conquer; he pressed her to him so closely that she once cried out. After he had stopped pressing against her legs, he felt her firm responding pressure against his lower thighs as far as just above his knees, at the place mentioned in the dream. In this situation, then, the woman is the magnesium in the retort, which is at last working. He is feminine towards me, as he is masculine towards the woman. If it will work with the woman, the treatment will also work. Feeling and becoming aware of himself in the region of his knees refers to masturbation, and corresponds to his fatigue of the previous day.... The rendezvous had actually been set for half-past eleven. His wish to oversleep and to remain with his usual s.e.xual objects (that is, with masturbation) corresponds with his resistance.
[1] 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._ [2] Cf. _Zentralblatt fur psychoa.n.a.lyse_, I.
[3] Or chapel--v.a.g.i.n.a.
[4] Symbol of coitus.
[5] Mons veneris.
[6] Crines pubis.
[7] Demons in cloaks and capucines are, according to the explanation of a man versed in the subject, of a phallic nature.
[8] The two halves of the s.c.r.o.t.u.m.
[9] See _Zentralblatt fur Psychoa.n.a.lyse_, vol. i., p. 2.
VI.
THE WISH IN DREAMS.
That the dream should be nothing but a wish-fulfillment surely seemed strange to us all--and that not alone because of the contradictions offered by the anxiety dream.
After learning from the first a.n.a.lytical explanations that the dream conceals sense and psychic validity, we could hardly expect so simple a determination of this sense. According to the correct but concise definition of Aristotle, the dream is a continuation of thinking in sleep (in so far as one sleeps). Considering that during the day our thoughts produce such a diversity of psychic acts--judgments, conclusions, contradictions, expectations, intentions, &c.--why should our sleeping thoughts be forced to confine themselves to the production of wishes? Are there not, on the contrary, many dreams that present a different psychic act in dream form, _e.g._, a solicitude, and is not the very transparent father's dream mentioned above of just such a nature? From the gleam of light falling into his eyes while asleep the father draws the solicitous conclusion that a candle has been upset and may have set fire to the corpse; he transforms this conclusion into a dream by investing it with a senseful situation enacted in the present tense. What part is played in this dream by the wish-fulfillment, and which are we to suspect--the predominance of the thought continued from, the waking state or of the thought incited by the new sensory impression?
All these considerations are just, and force us to enter more deeply into the part played by the wish-fulfillment in the dream, and into the significance of the waking thoughts continued in sleep.
It is in fact the wish-fulfillment that has already induced us to separate dreams into two groups. We have found some dreams that were plainly wish-fulfillments; and others in which wish-fulfillment could not be recognized, and was frequently concealed by every available means. In this latter cla.s.s of dreams we recognized the influence of the dream censor. The undisguised wish dreams were chiefly found in children, yet fleeting open-hearted wish dreams seemed (I purposely emphasize this word) to occur also in adults.