Part 1 (2/2)

THE DREAM MECHANISM

We are compelled to assume that such transformation of scene has also taken place in intricate dreah we do not knohether it has encountered any possible desire The dream instanced at the coive us occasion in two places to suspect soht out that my as occupied with others at table, and that I did not like it; in the dream itself exactly the opposite occurs, for the person who replaces ivespleasanter after a disagreeable incident than that the exact contrary should have occurred, just as the dreaht in the analysis, that I have never had anything for nothing, is similarly connected with the woman's remark in the dream: ”You have always had such beautiful eyes” Some portion of the opposition between the latent and manifest content of the dream must be therefore derived from the realization of a wish

Another manifestation of the dream hich all incoherent dreams have in common is still more noticeable Choose any instance, and compare the number of separate elements in it, or the extent of the dreahts yielded by analysis, and of which but a trace can be refound in the drea has resulted in an extraordinary compression or condensation It is not at first easy to form an opinion as to the extent of the condensation; the o into the analysis, the more deeply you are impressed by it There will be found no factor in the dream whence the chains of associations do not lead in two or ether out of two or more impressions and events For instance, I once drea-bath where the bathers suddenly separated in all directions; at one place on the edge a person stood bending towards one of the bathers as if to drag him out The scene was a composite one, made up out of an event that occurred at the time of puberty, and of two pictures, one of which I had seen just shortly before the dream The two pictures were The Surprise in the Bath, from Schwind's Cycle of the Melusine (note the bathers suddenly separating), and The Flood, by an Italian master The little incident was that I once witnessed a lady, who had tarried in the swi helped out of the water by the swi-master The scene in the drearoup of reminiscences, each one of which had contributed to the dream content First of all ca, of which I have already spoken; the pressure of a hand under the table gave rise in the dream to the ”under the table,” which I had subsequently to find a place for in my recollection There was, of course, at the tiht h its contradictory and related to the behavior of my wife at the table d'hote An exactly similar and much more important episode of our courtshi+p, one which separated us for an entire day, lies hidden behind this recent recollection The inti upon the knee, refers to a quite different connection and to quite other persons This ele-point of two distinct series of rehts which has been accumulated for the formation of the dream scene must be naturally fit for this application There must be one or more common factors The drearaphs The different elements are put one on top of the other; what is co details cancel each other This process of reproduction partly explains the wavering stateueness, in so many elements of the dreaood: When analysis discloses uncertainty, as to _either_--or read and, taking each section of the apparent alternatives as a separate outlet for a series of i in cohts, the drea, in order to make a common presentation feasible in the dreahts, which have as yet nothing in coe in the actual expression of one idea as willin the forous to that of rhyood deal of the dream work consists in the creation of those frequently very witty, but often exaggerated, digressions These vary frohts which are as varied as are the causes in forive rise to them In the analysis of our example of a dreaht in order that itout the analysis I struck upon the thought: I should like to have so But this formula is not serviceable to the dream Hence it is replaced by another one: ”I should like to enjoy so free of cost”[1] The word ”kost” (taste), with its double , is appropriate to a table d'hote; it, h the special sense in the dream At home if there is a dish which the children decline, their entle persuasion, with a ”Just taste it” That the drea of the word is certainly remarkable; ample experience has shown, however, that the occurrence is quite usual

Through condensation of the dream certain constituent parts of its content are explicable which are peculiar to the drea state Such are the coures, creations comparable with the fantastic aniht and these are reduced to unity, whilst the fancies of the dream are ever formed anew in an inexhaustible profusion Every one knows such iins I can build up a person by borrowing one feature fro to the form of one the name of another in my dream I can also visualize one person, but place him in a position which has occurred to another There is a amated into one substitute Such cases denote an ”and,” a ”just like,” a coinal person from a certain point of view, a comparison which can be also realized in the dream itself As a rule, however, the identity of the blended persons is only discoverable by analysis, and is only indicated in the dream content by the formation of the ”combined” person

The same diversity in their ways of forood also for the innumerable medley of dream contents, exaeness quite disappears e resolve not to place them on a level with the objects of perception as known to us when awake, but to remember that they represent the art of dream condensation by an exclusion of unnecessary detail Proiven to the coenerally supply the cos have an ”x” in coes by analysis is often the quickest way to an interpretation of the drea with one ofa rapid continuous movement amidst other benches This was a co staircase I will not pursue the further result of the thought Another tie, and on my lap an object in shape like a top-hat, which, however, was ht to my mind the proverb: ”He who keeps his hat in his hand will travel safely through the land” By a slight turn the glass hat reht_, and I knew that I was about to invent so which was to make me as rich and independent as his invention had made my countryman, Dr Auer, of Welsbach; then I should be able to travel instead of re with lass top-hat The drea two contradictory conceptions by e Thus, for instance, a wo a tall flower-stalk, as in the picture of the Annunciation (Chastity-Mary is her own name), but the stalk was bedecked with thick white blosso camellias (contrast with chastity: La dareat deal of e have called ”dream condensation” can be thus formulated Each one of the elements of the dreahts; it is not derived frohts, but from a whole series These are not necessarily interconnected in any way, but ht The dream element truly represents all this disparate matter in the dream content analysis, moreover, discloses another side of the relationshi+p between dreahts Just as one element of the dreahts, so, as a rule, the one dreaht represents more than one dream elee frohts to the dream content, but on the way they overlap and interweave in every way

Next to the transforht in the scene (its ”dramatization”), condensation is the most important and most characteristic feature of the drea for such compression of the content

In the complicated and intricate dreams hich we are now concerned, condensation and dramatization do not wholly account for the difference between dreahts There is evidence of a third factor, which deserves careful consideration

When I have arrived at an understanding of the dreahts by my analysis I notice, above all, that the matter of the manifest is very different from that of the latent dream content That is, I admit, only an apparent difference which vanishes on closer investigation, for in the end I find the whole dreahts, nearly all the dreaain represented in the dream content Nevertheless, there does remain a certain amount of difference

The essential content which stood out clearly and broadly in the dream must, after analysis, rest satisfied with a very subordinate role aoing by reatest importance are either not present at all in the dream content, or are represented by soion of the drea the dreahts and conceptions to which it properly pertains flows to others which, in ment, have no claim to such emphasis_ There is no other process which contributes soand to make the connection between the drea this process, which I will call the dreanificance, or ehts become transposed in sensory vividness What was clearest in the dream seems to me, without further consideration, the most important; but often in sonize the ht

I could only designate this dream displacement as the transvaluation of psychical values The phenos unless I add that this displacement or transvaluation is shared by different drearees There are dreams which take place almost without any displaceibility as we found in the dreams which recorded a desire In other dreams not a bit of the drea essential in these dream ideas has been replaced by unessentials, whilst every kind of transition between these conditions can be found The reater is the part to be ascribed to the impetus of displacement in its formation

The example that we chose for analysis shows, at least, this much of displacement--that its content has a different center of interest from that of the dream ideas In the forefront of the dream content the main scene appears as if a woman wished to make advances to me; in the dream idea the chief interest rests on the desire to enjoy disinterested love which shall ”cost nothing”; this idea lies at the back of the talk about the beautiful eyes and the far-fetched allusion to ”spinach”

If we abolish the dreah analysis quite certain conclusions regarding two problems of the dream which are most disputed--as to what provokes a dream at all, and as to the connection of the drea life There are dreams which at once expose their links with the events of the day; in others no trace of such a connection can be found By the aid of analysis it can be shown that every dream, without any exception, is linked up with our impression of the day, or perhaps it would be more correct to say of the day previous to the dream The impressions which have incited the drea occupied with the that the drea life More usually, however, when the drea to the impressions of the day, it is so trivial, uni of oblivion, that we can only recall it with an effort The dreaible, to be concerned with those indifferent trifles of thought undeserving of our waking interest The depreciation of dreaely due to the predominance of the indifferent and the worthless in their content

analysis destroys the appearance upon which this derogatory judg but so the dreanificant event, which has been replaced by so indifferent hich it has entered into abundant associations Where the drea and unimportant conceptions, analysis reveals the numerous associative paths which connect the trivial with the momentous in the psychical estimation of the individual _It is only the action of displacenition in the dream content instead of those impressions which are really the stis of real interest_ In answering the question as to what provokes the dream, as to the connection of the dreaht given us by replacing the manifest latent dreas which are not deserving of our concern during the day, and trivialities which do not trouble us during the day have no power to pursue us whilst asleep_

What provoked the dream in the example which we have analyzed? The really unimportant event, that a friend invited me to a free ride in his cab The table d'hote scene in the dream contains an allusion to this indifferent ht the taxi parallel with the table d'hote But I can indicate the important event which has as its substitute the trivial one A few days before I had disbursed a large sum of money for a member of my family who is very dear to rateful to me for this--this love is not cost-free But love that shall cost nothing is one of the prihts of the dream The fact that shortly before this I had had several drives with the relative in question puts the one drive with my friend in a position to recall the connection with the other person The indifferent impression which, by such ramifications, provokes the dream is subservient to another condition which is not true of the real source of the drea from the day of the dream

I cannot leave the question of dream displacement without the consideration of a remarkable process in the formation of dreaether towards one end In condensation we have already considered the case where two conceptions in the drea in common, some point of contact, are replaced in the dreaerm corresponds to what is common, and the indistinct secondary modifications to what is distinctive If displacement is added to condensation, there is no fore, but a common mean which bears the same relationshi+p to the individual eleram of forces to its components In one of my dreams, for instance, there is talk of an injection with propyl On first analysis I discovered an indifferent but true incident where amyl played a part as the excitant of the dreae of amyl for propyl To the round of ideas of the sas the recollection of my first visit to Munich, when the Propyloea struck me The attendant circumstances of the analysis render it adroup of conceptions caused the displacement of amyl to propyl Propyl is, so to say, the ot into the dream as a kind of compromise by simultaneous condensation and displace so work of the dream is even more called for in the case of displaceh the work of displacehts are not refound or recognized in the dreauessed), it is another and milder kind of transforhts which leads to the discovery of a new but readily understood act of the dreahts which are unravelled by analysis frequently strike one by their unusual wording They do not appear to be expressed in the sober for prefers; rather are they expressed syurative language of the poets It is not difficult to find the ree of constraint in the expression of dream ideas The dream content consists chiefly of visual scenes; hence the dream ideas must, in the first place, be prepared to make use of these forms of presentation Conceive that a political leader's or a barrister's address had to be transposed into pantomime, and it will be easy to understand the transforard for this dramatization of the dreahts there are ever found reminiscences of impressions, not infrequently of early childhood--scenes which, as a rule, have been visually grasped Whenever possible, this portion of the drea of the dream content; it works like a center of crystallization, by attracting and rearranging the stuff of the drea but a modified repetition, complicated by interpolations of events that have left such an impression; the dream but very seldom reproduces accurate and unmixed reproductions of real scenes

The dream content does not, however, consist exclusively of scenes, but it also includes scattered frages, conversations, and even bits of unchanged thoughts It will be perhaps to the point if we instance in the briefest way the means of dramatization which are at the disposal of the dreahts in the peculiar language of the dreahts which we learn from the analysis exhibit themselves as a psychical complex of the most complicated superstructure Their parts stand in the rounds and foregrounds, stipulations, digressions, illustrations, demonstrations, and protestations It ht is followed by its contradictory No feature known to our reason whilst awake is absent If a drearow out of all this, the psychical matter is submitted to a pressure which condenses it extre at the sa the constituents best adapted for the construction of these scenes Having regard to the origin of this stuff, the terical chains which hitherto held the psychical stuff together become lost in this transformation to the dream content The dream work takes on, as it were, only the essential content of the dreahts for elaboration It is left to analysis to restore the connection which the dream work has destroyed

The dreaer in coh the dreaical relation to the dreahts It rather succeeds with tolerable frequency in replacing these by formal characters of its own

By reason of the undoubted connection existing between all the parts of dreahts, the dreale scene It upholds a logical connection as approxiroups all the poets for his picture of Parnassus who, though they have never been all together on a mountain peak, yet form ideally a community The dream continues this method of presentation in individual dreaether in the dream content it warrants some special inner connection bethat they represent in the dreahts It should be, ht prove on analysis to originate froht

The causal connection between two ideas is either left without presentation, or replaced by two different long portions of dreams one after the other This presentation is frequently a reversed one, the beginning of the drea the deduction, and its end the hypothesis The direct transfor into another in the dream seems to serve the relationshi+p of cause and effect

The dream never utters the _alternative ”either-or,”_ but accepts both as having equal rights in the same connection When ”either-or” is used in the reproduction of dreams, it is, as I have already mentioned, to be replaced by ”and”

Conceptions which stand in opposition to one another are preferably expressed in dreams by the same element[2] There seems no ”not” in dreams Opposition between two ideas, the relation of conversion, is represented in dreams in a very remarkable way It is expressed by the reversal of another part of the dream content just as if by way of appendix We shall later on deal with another forreement The common dream sensation of reement of iical relationshi+ps--that of _sihly developed in the mechanism of drea-point for condensation, drawing together everything which shows such agreement to a fresh unity

These short, crude observations naturally do not suffice as an estimate of the abundance of the dreaical relationshi+ps of the dreahts In this respect, individual dreams are worked up more nicely or more carelessly, our text will have been followed more or less closely, auxiliaries of the dream ill have been taken more or less into consideration In the latter case they appear obscure, intricate, incoherent When the dream appears openly absurd, when it contains an obvious paradox in its content, it is so of purpose Through its apparent disregard of all logical claims, it expresses a part of the intellectual content of the dreareehts As this explanation is in entire disagreein to dissociated, uncritical cerebral activity, I will emphasize my view by an example: _”One of my acquaintances, Mr M----, has been attacked by no less a person than Goethe in an essay with, we all maintain, unwarrantable violence Mr M---- has naturally been ruined by this attack He complains very bitterly of this at a dinner-party, but his respect for Goethe has not dih this personal experience I now atteical relations which strike me as improbable Goethe died in 1832 As his attack upon Mr M---- must, of course, have taken place before, Mr M----hteen I am not certain, however, what year we are actually in, and the whole calculation falls into obscurity The attack was, moreover, contained in Goethe's well-known essay on 'Nature'”_ The absurdity of the drea when I state that Mr M---- is a young business man without any poetical or literary interests My analysis of the dream will shohat method there is in this madness The dream has derived its material from three sources: 1 Mr M----, to whoed ns of mental trouble In conversation with the patient, an unpleasant episode occurred Without the slightest occasion he disclosed one of his brother's youthful escapades I had asked the patient the year of his birth (year of death in dreaht show up his want of memory

2 Aothers on the cover had published a ruinous review of a book by my friend F---- of Berlin, from the pen of a very juvenile reviewer I coret, but would not promise any redress Thereupon I broke off nation I expressed the hope that our personal relations would not suffer froatory reception of my friend's work had ical discovery which only now, several years later, co the professors

3 A little while before, a patient gave”_Nature, Nature!_” had gone out of his mind The doctors considered that the exclamation arose from a study of _Goethe's_ beautiful essay, and indicated that the patient had been overworking I expressed the opinion that it seemed more plausible to me that the excla known also to the less educated in our country It see in it, because the unfortunate youth afterwards hteen years old when the attack occurred

The first person in the dreao was my friend who had been so scandalously treated _”I now atteical relation”_ My friend's book deals with the chronological relations of life, and, as, correlates _Goethe's_ duration of life with a nuo is, however, represented as a general paralytic (_”I am not certain what year we are actually in”_) The dreaeneral paralytic, and thus riots in absurdity But the dreahts run ironically ”Of course he is a enius who understands all about it But shouldn't it be the _other way round_?” This inversion obviously took place in the drea , can to-day easily attack the great Goethe

I am prepared to oistic eo in the dream does not, indeed, represent only my friend, but stands for myself also I identify myself with him because the fate of his discovery appears to me typical of the acceptance of ives sexuality predoy of psychoneurotic disorders (see the allusion to the eighteen-year-old patient--_”Nature, Nature!”_), the same criticism would be leveled at me, and it would even now meet with the sahts closely, I ever find only scorn and contempt as _correlated with the dream's absurdity_ It is well known that the discovery of a cracked sheep's skull on the Lido in Venice gave Goethe the hint for the so-called vertebral theory of the skull My friend plu as a student raised a hubbub for the resignation of an aged professor who had done good work (including some in this very subject of comparative anatomy), but who, on account of decrepitude, had becoitation my friend inspired was so successful because in the Gere lie is no protection against folly_ In the hospital here I had for years the honor to serve under a chief who, long fossilized, was for decades notoriously feebleminded, and was yet permitted to continue in his responsible office A trait, after the manner of the find in the Lido, forces itself upon ues in the hospital adapted the then popular slang of that day: ”No Goethe has written that,” ”No Schiller composed that,” etc

We have not exhausted our valuation of the dream work In addition to condensation, displaceement of the psychical matter, we must ascribe to it yet another activity--one which is, indeed, not shared by every dream I shall not treat this position of the dream work exhaustively; I will only point out that the readiest way to arrive at a conception of it is to take for granted, probably unfairly, that it only subsequently influences the dream content which has already been built up Itsthe parts of the dream that these coalesce to a coherent whole, to a dreaets a kind of facade which, it is true, does not conceal the whole of its content There is a sort of prelithened by interpolations and slight alterations Such elaboration of the dream content must not be too pronounced; the ives rise is merely superficial, and our first piece of work in analyzing a dreaet rid of these early attempts at interpretation

The ed This final elaboration of the dreaibility_--a fact at once betraying the origin of an action which behaves towards the actual dream content just as our normal psychical action behaves towards so The dream content is thus secured under the pretense of certain expectations, is perceptually classified by the supposition of its intelligibility, thereby risking its falsification, whilst, in fact, the most extraordinary misconceptions arise if the drea familiar Every one is aware that we are unable to look at any series of unfans, or to listen to a discussion of unknoords, without at once ibility, through our falling back upon what is familiar

We can call those dreams properly made up which are the result of an elaboration in every way analogous to the psychical action of our waking life In other dreams there is no such action; not even an atteard the drea it is with this last-named part of the dream work, the dream elaboration, that we identify ourselves So far, however, as our analysis is concerned, the dreaments, is of as much value as the one with a smooth and beautifully polished surface In the former case we are spared, to so down the super-elaboration of the dream content

All the sa but the misunderstood and somewhat arbitrary elaboration of the dream carried out at the instance of our psychical life Wishes and phantasies are not infrequently employed in the erection of this facade, which were already fashi+oned in the drea life--”day-dreams,” as they are very properly called These wishes and phantasies, which analysis discloses in our dreaht, often present thes of the scenes of infancy Thus the dream facade may show us directly the true core of the dreah admixture with other matter

Beyond these four activities there is nothing else to be discovered in the dream work If we keep closely to the definition that dreahts to dream content, we are compelled to say that the dream work is not creative; it develops no fancies of its own, it judges nothing, decides nothing It does nothing but prepare the matter for condensation and displacement, and refashi+ons it for dramatization, to which must be added the inconstant last-named mechanisood deal is found in the dreaht be understood as the result of another and more intellectual performance; but analysis shows conclusively every time that these _intellectual operations were already present in the dreahts, and have only been taken over by the drea other than the repetition of a syllogishts; it seems inoffensive if it has been transferred to the dream without alteration; it becomes absurd if in the dream work it has been transferred to other matter A calculation in the dream content sihts; whilst this is always correct, the calculation in the dream can furnish the silliest resu