SEVENTH LECTURE
MANIFEST CONTENT AND LATENT THOUGHTS
You see that our study of errors has not been fruitless. Thanks to our exertions in that direction, we have—reasoning from the hypotheses with which you are familiar—secured two results: a conception of the nature of the dream-element and a technique of dream-interpretation. The conception of the dream-element is as follows: it is not in itself a primary and essential thing, a ‘thought proper,’ but a substitute for something else unknown to the person concerned, just as is the underlying intention of the error, a substitute for something the knowledge of which is indeed possessed by the dreamer but is inaccessible to him. We hope to be able to carry over the same conception on to the dream as a whole, which consists of a number of such elements. Our method is to allow other substitute-ideas, from which we are able to divine that which lies hidden, to emerge into consciousness by means of free association to the said elements.
I am now going to propose that we introduce an alteration in our nomenclature in order to make our terminology more flexible. Instead of using the words “hidden,” “inaccessible,” or “proper,” let us give a more precise description and say “inaccessible to the consciousness of the dreamer” or “unconscious.” By that we mean nothing more than was implied in the case of the forgotten word, or the underlying intention responsible for the error; that is to say, unconscious at the moment. It follows that in contradistinction we may call the dream-elements themselves, and those substitute-ideas arrived at by the process of association, conscious. No theoretical implication is so far contained in these terms; no exception can be taken to the use of the word “unconscious” as a description at once applicable and easy to understand.[26]
Now, transferring our conception from the single element to the dream as a whole, it follows that the latter is the distorted substitute for something else, something unconscious, and that the task of dream-interpretation is to discover these unconscious thoughts. Hence are derived three important rules which should be observed in the work of dream-interpretation:
1. We are not to trouble about the surface meaning of the dream, whether it be reasonable or absurd, clear or confused; in no case does it constitute the unconscious thoughts we are seeking. (An obvious limitation of this rule will force itself upon us later.)
2. We are to confine our work to calling up substitute-ideas for every element and not to ponder over them and try to see whether they contain something which fits in, nor to trouble ourselves about how far they are taking us from the dream-element.
3. We must wait until the hidden unconscious thoughts which we are seeking appear of their own accord, just as in the case of the missing word “Monaco” in the experiment which I described.
Now we understand also how entirely indifferent it is whether we remember much or little of our dreams, above all whether we remember them accurately or not. The dream as remembered is not the real thing at all, but a distorted substitute which, by calling up other substitute-ideas, provides us with a means of approaching the thought proper, of bringing into consciousness the unconscious thoughts underlying the dream. If our recollection was at fault, all that has happened is that a further distortion of the substitute has taken place, and this distortion itself cannot be without motivation.
We can interpret our own dreams as well as those of others; indeed, we learn more from our own and the process carries more conviction. Now if we experiment in this direction, we notice that something is working against us. Associations come, it is true, but we do not admit them all; we are moved to criticize and to select. We say to ourselves of one association: “No, that does not fit in—it is irrelevant,” and of another: “That is too absurd,” and of a third: “That is quite beside the point”; and then we can observe further that in making such objections we stifle, and in the end actually banish, the associations before they have become quite clear. So on the one hand we tend to hold too closely to the initial idea, that is, the dream-element itself, and on the other, by allowing ourselves to select, we vitiate the results of the process of free association. If we are not attempting the interpretation by ourselves, but are allowing someone else to interpret, we shall clearly perceive another motive impelling us to this selection, forbidden as we know it to be. We find ourselves thinking at times: “No, this association is too unpleasant; I cannot, or will not, tell it to him.”
Clearly these objections threaten to spoil the success of our work. We must guard against them when we are interpreting our own dreams by resolving firmly not to yield to them, and, in interpreting those of someone else, by laying down the hard and fast rule that he must not withhold any association, even if one of the four objections I have named rises up against it, namely, that it is too unimportant, too absurd, too irrelevant or too unpleasant to speak of. He promises to keep this rule, and we may well feel annoyed when we find how badly he fulfils his promise later on. At first we account for this by imagining that in spite of our authoritative assurance he is not convinced that the process of free association will be justified by its results; and perhaps our next idea will be to win him over first to our theory, by giving him books to read or sending him to lectures so that he may be converted to our views on the subject. But we shall be saved from any such false steps by observing that the same critical objections against certain associations arise even in ourselves, whom we surely cannot suspect of doubt, and can only subsequently, on second thoughts as it were, be overcome.
Instead of being annoyed at the dreamer’s disobedience, we can turn this experience to good account as a means of learning something new, something which is the more important the more unprepared we were for it. We realize that the work of dream-interpretation is encountering opposition by a resistance which expresses itself in this very form of critical objections. This resistance is independent of the theoretical conviction of the dreamer. We learn even more than this. Experience shows that a critical objection of this nature is never justified. On the contrary, the associations which people wish to suppress in this way prove without exception to be the most important, to be decisive for the discovery of the unconscious thought. When an association is accompanied by an objection of this sort it positively calls for special notice.
This resistance is something entirely new; a phenomenon which we have found by following out our hypotheses, although it was not included in them. We are not altogether agreeably surprised by this new factor which we have to reckon with, for we suspect already that it will not make our work any easier: it might almost tempt us to give up the effort with dreams altogether. To take such a trivial subject and then to have so much trouble, instead of spinning along smoothly with our technique! But we might on the other hand find these difficulties fascinating and be led to suspect that the work will be worth the trouble. Resistances invariably confront us when we try to penetrate to the hidden unconscious thought from the substitute offered by the dream-element. We may suppose, therefore, that something very significant must be concealed behind the substitute; for, if not, why should we meet with such difficulties, the purpose of which is to keep up the concealment? When a child will not open his clenched fist to show what is in it, we may be quite certain that it is something which he ought not to have.
As soon as we introduce into our subject the dynamic conception of resistance, we must bear in mind that this factor is something quantitatively variable. There are greater and lesser resistances, and we are prepared to find these differences showing themselves in the course of our work. Perhaps we can connect with this another experience also met with in the process of dream-interpretation. I mean that sometimes only a few associations—perhaps not more than one—suffice to lead us from the dream-element to the unconscious thought behind it, whilst on other occasions long chains of associations are necessary and many critical objections have to be overcome. We shall probably think that the number of associations necessary varies with the varying strength of the resistances, and very likely we shall be right. If there is only a slight resistance, the substitute is not far removed from the unconscious thought; a strong resistance on the other hand causes great distortions of the latter, and thereby entails a long journey back from the substitute to the unconscious thought itself.
Perhaps this would be a good moment to select a dream and try our technique upon it, to see whether the expectations we have entertained are realized. Very well, but what dream shall we choose? You do not know how difficult it is for me to decide, nor can I make it clear to you yet what the difficulties are. Obviously there must be dreams in which on the whole there is very little distortion, and one would think it would be best to begin with these. But which are the least distorted dreams? Those which make good sense and are not confused, of which I have already given you two examples? In assuming this, we should make a great mistake, for examination shows that these dreams have undergone an exceptionally high degree of distortion. Supposing then that I make no special condition but take any dream at random, you would probably be very much disappointed. We might have to observe and record such a vast number of associations to the single dream-elements that it would be quite impossible to gain any clear view of the work as a whole. If we write the dream down and compare with it all the associations which it produces, we are likely to find that they have multiplied the length of the text of the dream many times. So the most practical method would seem to be that of selecting for analysis several short dreams, each of which can at least convey some idea to us or confirm some supposition. This will be the course we shall decide to take, unless experience gives us a hint where we ought really to look for slightly distorted dreams.
But I can suggest another means of simplifying matters, one which lies right before us. Instead of attempting the interpretation of whole dreams, let us confine ourselves to single dream-elements and find out by taking a series of examples how the application of our technique explains them:—
(a) A lady related that as a child she very often dreamt that God had a pointed paper cap on his head. How are you going to understand that without the help of the dreamer? It sounds quite nonsensical; but the absurdity disappears when the lady says that as a little girl she used to have a cap like that put on her head at table, because she wouldn’t give up looking at the plates of her brothers and sisters to see whether any of them had been given more than she. Evidently the cap was meant to serve the purpose of blinkers; this piece of historical information was given, by the way, without any difficulty. The interpretation of this element and, with it, of the whole short dream becomes easy enough with the help of a further association of the dreamer’s: “As I had been told that God knew everything and saw everything, the dream could only mean that I knew and saw everything as God did, even when they tried to prevent me.” This example is perhaps too simple.
(b) A sceptical patient had a longer dream, in which certain people were telling her about my book on Wit and praising it very highly. Then something else came in about a canal; it might have been another book in which the word canal occurred, or something else to do with a canal ... she did not know ... it was quite vague.
Now you will certainly be inclined to suppose that the canal in the dream will defy interpretation on account of its vagueness. You are right in expecting difficulty, but the difficulty is not caused by the vagueness; on the contrary, the difficulty in interpretation is caused by something else, by the same thing that makes the element vague. The dreamer had no association to the word “canal”; naturally I did not know what to say either. Shortly afterwards, to be accurate, on the next day, she told me that an association had occurred to her which perhaps had something to do with it. It was in fact a witty remark which some one had told her. On board ship between Dover and Calais a well-known author was talking to an Englishman who in some particular context quoted the words: “Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas.” The author answered: “Oui, le Pas-de-Calais,” meaning that he regarded France as sublime and England as ridiculous. Of course, the Pas-de-Calais is a canal—that is to say, the Canal la Manche—the English Channel. Now, you ask, do I think that this association had anything to do with the dream? Certainly I think so: it gives the true meaning of the puzzling dream-element. Or are you inclined to doubt that the joke already existed before the dream and was the unconscious thought behind the element “canal,” and to maintain that it was a subsequent invention? The association reveals the scepticism disguised under the obtrusive admiration, and resistance was no doubt the cause both of the association being so long in occurring to her, and of the corresponding dream-element being so vague. Observe here the relation between the dream-element and the unconscious thought underlying it: it is, as it were, a fragment of the thought, an allusion to it; by being isolated in that way it became quite incomprehensible.
(c) A patient had a fairly long dream, part of which was as follows: Several members of his family were seated at a table of a particular shape ... etc. This table reminded the dreamer that he had seen one of the same sort when he was visiting a certain family. From that his thoughts ran on thus: in this family the relationship between father and son was a peculiar one, and the patient presently added that his own relationship to his father was, as a matter of fact, of the same nature. So the table was introduced into the dream to indicate this parallelism.
It happened that this dreamer had long been familiar with the demands of dream-interpretation; otherwise he might have taken exception to the idea of investigating so trivial a detail as the shape of a table. We do literally deny that anything in the dream is a matter of chance or of indifference, and it is precisely by enquiring into such trivial and (apparently) unmotivated details that we expect to arrive at our conclusion. You may perhaps still be surprised that the dream-work should happen to choose the table, in order to express the thought “Our relationship is just like theirs.” But even this is explicable when you learn that the family in question was named “Tischler.” (Tisch = table.) In making his relations sit at this table the dreamer’s meaning was that they too were “Tischler.”[27] And notice another thing: that in relating dream-interpretations of this sort one is forced into indiscretion. There you have one of the difficulties I alluded to in the matter of choosing examples. I could easily have given you another example instead of this one, but probably I should have avoided this indiscretion only to commit another in its place.
This seems to me a good point at which to introduce two new terms which we might have used already. Let us call the dream as related the manifest dream-content, and the hidden meaning, which we should come by in following out the associations, the latent dream-thoughts. Then we must consider the relation between the manifest content and the latent thoughts, as shown in the above examples. There are many varieties of these relations. In examples (a) and (b) the manifest dream-element is also an integral part of the latent thoughts, but only a fragment of them. A small piece of a great, composite, mental structure in the unconscious dream-thoughts has made its way into the manifest dream also, in the form of a fragment or in other cases as an allusion, like a catch-word or an abbreviation in a telegraphic code. The interpretation has to complete the whole to which this scrap or allusion belongs, which it did most successfully in example (b). One method of the distorting process in which the dream-work consists is therefore that of substituting for something else a fragment or an allusion. In example (c) we notice, moreover, another possible relation between manifest content and latent thought, a relation which is even more plainly and distinctly expressed in the following examples:—
(d) The dreamer was pulling a certain lady of his acquaintance out of a ditch. He himself found the meaning of this dream-element by means of the first association. It meant: he “picked her out,” preferred her.[28]
(e) Another man dreamt that his brother was digging up his garden all over again. The first association was to deep-trenching for vegetables, the second gave the meaning. The brother was retrenching. (Retrenching his expenses).[29]
(f) The dreamer was climbing a mountain from which he had a remarkably wide view. This sounds most reasonable; perhaps no interpretation is called for and we have only to find out what recollection is referred to in the dream, and what had aroused it. No, you are mistaken; it comes out that this dream needed interpretation just as much as any other, more confused. For the dreamer remembers nothing about mountain-climbing himself; instead, it occurs to him that an acquaintance is publishing a Rundschau (Review), on the subject of our relations with the most distant parts of the earth: hence, the latent thought is one in which the dreamer identifies himself with the “reviewer” (lit. one who takes a survey).
Here you come across a new type of relation between the manifest and the latent element in dreams. The former is not so much a distortion of the latter as a representation—a plastic, concrete piece of imagery, originating in the sound of a word. It is true that this amounts in effect to a distortion, for we have long forgotten from what concrete image the word sprang, and hence fail to recognize it when that image is substituted for it. When you consider that the manifest dream consists of visual images in by far the greatest number of cases, and less frequently of thoughts and words, you will easily realize that this kind of relation between the manifest and the latent has a special significance in the structure of dreams. You see too that in this way it becomes possible for a long series of abstract thoughts to create substitute-images in the manifest dream which do indeed serve the purpose of concealment. This is how our picture-puzzles are made up. The source of the semblance of wit which goes with this type of representation is a special question which we need not touch on here.
There is a fourth kind of relation between the manifest and the latent elements which I will say nothing about until the time comes for it in my account of our technique. Even then I shall not have given you a full list of these possible relations, but we shall have sufficient for our purpose.
Now do you think you can summon up courage to venture on the interpretation of a whole dream? Let us see whether we are adequately equipped for the task. I shall not, of course, choose one of the most obscure, but all the same it shall be one which shows the characteristics of dreams in a well-marked form.
A young woman who had already been married for a number of years dreamt as follows: She was at the theatre with her husband, and one side of the stalls was quite empty. Her husband told her that Elise L. and her fiancé also wanted to come, but could only get bad seats, three for a florin and a half, and of course they could not take those. She replied that in her opinion they did not lose much by that.
The first thing stated by the dreamer is that the occasion giving rise to the dream is alluded to in the manifest content: her husband had really told her that Elise L., an acquaintance of about her own age, had become engaged, and the dream is the reaction to this piece of news. We know already that in many dreams it is easy to point to some such occasion occurring on the day before, and that this is often traced by the dreamer without any difficulty. This dreamer supplies us with further information of the same sort about other elements in the manifest dream. To what did she trace the detail of one side of the stalls being empty? It was an allusion to a real occurrence of the week before, when she had meant to go to a certain play and had therefore booked seats early, so early that she had to pay extra for the tickets. On entering the theatre it was evident that her anxiety had been quite superfluous, for one side of the stalls was almost empty. It would have been time enough if she had bought the tickets on the actual day of the performance and her husband did not fail to tease her about having been in too great a hurry. Next, what about the one florin and a half (1 fl. 50)? This was traced to quite another context which had nothing to do with the former, but it again refers to some news received on the previous day. Her sister-in-law had had a present of 150 florins from her husband and had rushed off in a hurry, like a silly goose, to a jeweller’s shop and spent it all on a piece of jewellery. What about the number three? She knew nothing about that unless this idea could be counted an association, that the engaged girl, Elise L., was only three months younger than she herself who had been married ten years. And the absurdity of taking three tickets for two people? She had nothing to say to this and refused to give any more associations or information whatever.
Nevertheless, her few associations have provided us with so much material that it is possible to discover the latent dream-thoughts. We are struck by the fact that in her statements references to time are noticeable at several points, which form a common basis for the different parts of this material. She had got the theatre tickets too soon, taken them in too great a hurry, so that she had to pay extra for them; in the same way her sister-in-law had hurried off to the jeweller’s with her money to buy an ornament with it, as though she might miss something. If the strongly emphasized points: “too early,” “too great a hurry,” are connected with the occasion for the dream (namely, the news that her friend, only three months younger than herself, had now found a good husband after all) and with the criticism expressed in her asperity about her sister-in-law, that it was folly to be so precipitate, there occurs to us almost spontaneously the following construction of the latent dream-thoughts, for which the manifest dream is a highly-distorted substitute:
“It was really foolish of me to be in such a hurry to marry! Elise’s example shows me that I too could have found a husband later on.” (The over-haste is represented by her own conduct in buying the tickets and that of her sister-in-law in buying the jewellery. Going to the theatre is substituted for getting married.) This would be the main thought; perhaps we may go on, though with less certainty because the analysis in these passages ought not to be unsupported by statements of the dreamer: “And I might have had one a hundred times better for the money!” (150 florins is 100 times more than one florin and a half.) If we may substitute the dowry for the money, it would mean that the husband is bought with the dowry: both the jewellery and the bad seats would stand for the husband. It would be still more desirable if we could see some connection between the element “three tickets” and a husband; but our knowledge does not as yet extend to this. We have only found out that the dream expresses depreciation of her own husband and regret at having married so early.
In my opinion we shall be more surprised and confused by the result of this our first attempt at dream-interpretation than satisfied with it. Too many ideas force themselves upon us at once, more than as yet we can master. We see already that we shall not come to the end of what the interpretation of this dream can teach us. Let us immediately single out those points in which we can definitely see some new knowledge.
In the first place: we note that in the latent thoughts the chief emphasis falls upon the element of hurry; in the manifest dream that is exactly a feature about which we find nothing. Without analysis we could have had no suspicion that this thought entered in at all. It seems possible, therefore, that precisely the main point round which the unconscious thoughts centre does not appear in the manifest dream at all. This fact must radically change the impression made upon us by the whole dream. In the second place: in the dream there is a nonsensical combination of ideas (three for one florin and a half); in the dream-thoughts we detect the opinion: “It was folly (to marry so early).” Can one reject the conclusion that this thought, “It was folly,” is represented by the introduction into the manifest dream of an absurd element? In the third place: comparison shows us that the relation between manifest and latent elements is no simple one, certainly not of such a kind that a manifest always replaces a latent element. The relation between the two is of the nature of a relation between two different groups, so that a manifest element can represent several latent thoughts or a latent thought be replaced by several manifest elements.
As regards the meaning of the dream and the dreamer’s attitude towards it, here again we might find many surprising things to say. The lady certainly admitted the interpretation, but she wondered at it; she had not been aware that she had such disparaging thoughts of her husband; she did not even know why she should so disparage him. So there is still much that is incomprehensible about it. I really think that as yet we are not properly equipped for interpreting a dream and that we need further instruction and preparation first.
EIGHTH LECTURE
CHILDREN’S DREAMS
We had the impression that we had advanced too rapidly; let us therefore retrace our steps a little. Before we made our last experiment in which we tried to overcome the difficulty of dream-distortion by means of our technique, we said that it would be best to circumvent it by confining our attention to dreams in which distortion is absent or occurs only to a very slight extent, if there are any such dreams. In doing this, we are again departing from the actual course of development of our knowledge; for in reality it was only after consistently applying our method of interpretation, and after exhaustive analysis of dreams in which distortion occurred, that we became aware of the existence of those in which it is lacking.
The dreams we are looking for are met with in children: short, clear, coherent, and easy to understand, they are free from ambiguity and yet are unmistakable dreams. You must not think, however, that all dreams in children are of this type. Distortion in dreams begins to appear very early in childhood, and there are on record dreams of children between five and eight years old which already show all the characteristics of the dreams of later life. But, if you confine yourselves to those occurring in the period between the dawn of recognizable mental activity and the fourth or fifth year of life, you will discover a series which we should characterize as infantile, and, in the later years of childhood, you may find single dreams of the same type; indeed, even in grown-up people under certain conditions dreams appear which in no way differ from the typically infantile.
Now from these children’s dreams it is possible to obtain without any difficulty trustworthy information about the essential nature of dreams, which we hope will prove to be decisive and universally valid.
1. In order to understand these dreams there is no need for any analysis nor for the employment of any technique. It is not necessary to question the child who relates his dream. But we must know something about his life; in every instance there is some experience from the previous day which explains the dream. The dream is the mind’s reaction in sleep to the experience of the previous day.
Let us consider some examples in order to base our further conclusions upon them:
(a) A boy of a year and ten months old had to present someone with a basket of cherries as a birthday gift. He plainly did it very unwillingly, although he had been promised some of them for himself. The next morning he told his dream: “Hermann eaten all the cherries.”
(b) A little girl of three and a quarter years went for the first time for a trip on the lake. When they came to land, she did not wish to leave the boat and cried bitterly; the time on the water had evidently gone too quickly for her. Next morning she said: “Last night I was sailing on the lake.” We may probably infer that this trip lasted longer.
(c) A boy five and a quarter years old was taken on an excursion to the Escherntal near Hallstatt. He had heard that Hallstatt lay at the foot of the Dachstein and had shown great interest in that mountain. From the lodgings in Aussee there was a fine view of the Dachstein, and with a telescope it was possible to make out the Simony Hut on top. The child had repeatedly endeavoured to see the hut through the telescope, but nobody knew whether he had succeeded. The excursion began in a mood of joyful expectation. Whenever a new mountain came into sight, the little boy asked: “Is that the Dachstein?” Every time his question was answered in the negative he grew more out of spirits and presently became silent and refused to climb a little way up to the waterfall with the others. He was thought to be overtired, but the next morning he said quite happily: “Last night I dreamt that we were in the Simony Hut.” So it was with this expectation that he had taken part in the excursion. The only detail he gave was one he had heard before: “You have to climb up steps for six hours.”
These three dreams will be enough to give us all the information we need at this point.
2. We see that these childhood dreams are not meaningless; they are complete, comprehensible mental acts. Remember the medical verdict about dreams, which I told you, and the comparison with unskilled fingers wandering over the keys of the piano. You cannot fail to notice how sharply this conception is contradicted by the children’s dreams I have quoted. Now it would surely be most extraordinary if a child were able to achieve the performance of complete mental acts during sleep, and the grown-up person in the same situation contented himself with spasmodic reactions. Besides, we have every reason for attributing better and deeper sleep to a child.
3. In these dreams there is no distortion and therefore they need no interpretation: the manifest and the latent content is here identical. From this we conclude that distortion is not essential to the nature of the dream. I expect that this statement will take a weight off your minds. Nevertheless, closer consideration forces us to admit that even in these dreams distortion is present, though in a very slight degree, that there is a certain difference between the manifest content and the latent dream-thought.
4. The child’s dream is a reaction to an experience of the previous day, which has left behind a regret, a longing, or an unsatisfied wish. In the dream we have the direct, undisguised fulfilment of this wish. Now consider our discussion as to the part played by the external or internal somatic stimuli as disturbers of sleep and begetters of dreams. We learnt certain quite definite facts on this point, but this explanation only held good in a small number of dreams. In these children’s dreams there is nothing to indicate the influence of such somatic stimuli; we can make no mistake about it, for the dreams are perfectly comprehensible and each can easily be grasped as a whole. But we need not on that account give up our notion of the stimulus as causing the dream. We can only ask why we forget from the outset that there are mental as well as bodily sleep-disturbing stimuli; surely we know that it is these which are mainly responsible for disturbing the sleep of the grown-up person, in that they hinder him from bringing about in himself the mental condition essential for sleep, i.e. the withdrawal of interest from the outside world. He wishes not to have any interruption in his life; he would prefer to continue working at whatever occupies him, and that is the reason why he does not sleep. The mental stimulus which disturbs sleep is therefore for a child the unsatisfied wish, and his reaction to this is a dream.
5. This takes us by a very short step to a conclusion about the function of dreams. If dreams are the reaction to a mental stimulus their value must lie in effecting a discharge of the excitation so that the stimulus is removed and sleep can continue. We do not yet know how this discharge through the dream is effected dynamically, but we notice already that dreams are not disturbers of sleep (the accusation commonly brought against them), but are guardians and deliverers of it from disturbing influences. True, we are apt to think we should have slept better if we had not dreamed, but there we are wrong: the truth is that without the help of the dream we should not have slept at all, and we owe it to the dream that we slept as well as we did. It could not help disturbing us a little, just as a policeman often cannot avoid making a noise when driving off disturbers of the peace who would wake us.
6. That dreams are brought about by a wish and that the content of the dream expresses this wish is one main characteristic of dreams. The other equally constant feature is that the dream does not merely give expression to a thought, but represents this wish as fulfilled, in the form of an hallucinatory experience. “I should like to sail on the lake,” runs the wish which gives rise to the dream; the content of the dream itself is: “I am sailing on the lake.” So that even in these simple dreams belonging to childhood there is still a difference between the latent and the manifest dream, and still a distortion of the latent dream-thought, in the translation of the thought into an experience. In interpreting a dream, we must first of all undo this process of alteration. If this is to be regarded as one of the most universal characteristics of all dreams, we then know how to translate the dream-fragment I quoted before: “I see my brother digging” does not mean “my brother is retrenching,” but “I wish my brother would retrench, he is to retrench.” Of the two universal characteristics here mentioned the second is obviously more likely to be acknowledged without opposition than the first. It is only by extensive investigations that we can make sure that what produces the dream must always be a wish and cannot sometimes be a preoccupation, a purpose, or reproach; but the other characteristic remains unaffected, namely, that the dream does not merely reproduce this stimulus, but, by a kind of living it through, removes it, sets it aside, relieves it.
7. In connection with these characteristics of dreams we may take up again our comparison between dreams and errors. In the latter we distinguished between a disturbing tendency and one which is disturbed, the error being a compromise between the two. Dreams fall into the same category; the disturbed tendency can only, of course, be the tendency to sleep, while the disturbing tendency resolves itself into the mental stimulus which we may call the wish (clamouring for gratification), since at present we know of no other mental stimulus disturbing sleep. Here again the dream is the result of a compromise; we sleep, and yet we experience the satisfaction of a wish; we gratify a wish and at the same time continue to sleep. Each achieves part-success and part-failure.
8. You will remember that at one point we hoped to find a path to an understanding of the problems presented by dreams in the fact that certain very transparent phantasy-formations are called “day-dreams.” Now these day-dreams are literally wish-fulfilments, fulfilments of ambitious or erotic wishes, which we recognize as such; they are, however, carried out in thought, and, however vividly imagined, they never take the form of hallucinatory experiences. Here, therefore, the less certain of the two main characteristics of the dream is retained, whereas the other, to which the condition of sleep is essential and which cannot be realized in waking life, is entirely lacking. So in language we find a hint that a wish-fulfilment is a main characteristic of dreams. And further, if the experience we have in dreams is only another form of imaginative representation, a form which becomes possible under the peculiar conditions of the sleeping state—“a nocturnal day-dream,” as we might call it—we understand at once how it is that the process of dream-formation can abrogate the stimulus operating at night and can bring gratification; for day-dreaming also is a mode of activity closely linked up with gratification, which is in fact the only reason why people practise it.
Again, there are other linguistic expressions, besides this, which imply the same thing. We are familiar with the proverbs: “The pig dreams of acorns and the goose of maize.” “What do chickens dream of? Of millet.” The proverb, you see, goes even lower in the scale than we do, beyond the child to the animal, and asserts that the content of dreams is the satisfaction of a want. And there are many phrases which seem to point to the same thing: we say “as beautiful as a dream.” “I should never have dreamt of such a thing.” “I never imagined that in my wildest dreams.” Here colloquial speech is clearly partial in its judgement. Of course there are also anxiety-dreams, and dreams the content of which is painful or indifferent, but these have not given rise to any special phrases. We do indeed speak of “bad” dreams, but by a “dream” pure and simple common usage always understands some sort of exquisite wish-fulfilment. Nor is there any proverb which attempts to assert that pigs or geese dream of being slaughtered!
It is, of course, inconceivable that this wish-fulfilling character of dreams should have escaped the notice of writers on the subject. On the contrary, they have very often remarked upon it; but it has not occurred to any of them to recognize this characteristic as universal, and to take it as the key to the explanation of dreams. We can easily imagine what may have deterred them, and later we will discuss the question.
Now see how much information we have gained, and that with hardly any trouble, from our study of children’s dreams! We have learnt that the function of dreams is to protect sleep; that they arise out of two conflicting tendencies, of which the one, the desire for sleep, remains constant, whilst the other endeavours to satisfy some mental stimulus; that dreams are proved to be mental acts, rich in meaning; that they have two main characteristics, i.e., they are wish-fulfilments and hallucinatory experiences. And meanwhile we could almost have forgotten that we were studying psycho-analysis. Apart from the connection we have made between dreams and errors our work has not borne any specific stamp. Any psychologist knowing nothing of the assumptions of psycho-analysis could have given this explanation of children’s dreams. Why has no one done so?
If only all dreams were of the infantile type the problem would be solved and our task already achieved, and that without questioning the dreamer, referring to the unconscious or having recourse to the process of free association. Clearly it is in this direction that we must continue our work. We have already repeatedly found that characteristics alleged to be universally valid have afterwards proved to hold good only for a certain kind and a limited number of dreams. So the question we now have to decide is whether the common characteristics revealed by children’s dreams are any more stable than these, and whether they hold also for those dreams whose meaning is not obvious and in whose manifest content we can recognize no reference to a wish remaining from the day before. Our idea is that these other dreams have undergone a good deal of distortion and on that account we must refrain from immediate judgement. We suspect too that to unravel this distortion we shall need the help of psycho-analytic technique, which we could dispense with while learning, as we have just now done, the meaning of children’s dreams.
There is yet one other class of dreams at least in which no distortion is present and which, like children’s dreams, we easily recognize to be wish-fulfilments. These are dreams which are occasioned all through life by imperative physical needs—hunger, thirst, sexual desire—and are wish-fulfilments in the sense of being reactions to internal somatic stimuli. Thus I have on record the dream of a little girl, one year and seven months old, which consisted of a kind of menu, together with her name (Anna F ..., strawberries, bilberries, egg, pap), the dream being a reaction to a day of fasting, enforced on account of indigestion due to eating the fruit which appeared twice in the dream. At the same time her grandmother—their combined ages totalled seventy—was obliged, owing to a floating kidney, to go without food for a day and dreamt that night that she had been invited out and had had the most tempting delicacies set before her. Observations on prisoners who are left to go hungry, and on people who suffer privations whilst travelling or on expeditions, show that in these circumstances they regularly dream about the satisfaction of their wants. Thus Otto Nordenskjöld in his book on the Antarctic (1904) tells us of the band of men in whose company he spent the winter (Vol. I, p. 336): “Our dreams showed very clearly the direction our thoughts were taking. Never had we dreamt so frequently and so vividly as at that time. Even those of our comrades who usually dreamt but rarely had now long stories to tell in the mornings when we exchanged our latest experiences in this realm of phantasy. All the dreams were about that outside world now so far away, but often they included a reference to our condition at the time ... eating and drinking were, incidentally, the pivot on which our dreams most often turned. One of us, who was particularly good at going out to large dinners in his sleep, was delighted when he could tell us in the morning that he had had a three-course dinner. Another dreamt of tobacco, whole mountains of tobacco; another of a ship which came full sail over the water, at last clear of ice. Yet another dream deserves mention: the postman came with the letters and gave a long explanation of why they were so late; he said he had made a mistake in delivering them, and had had great trouble in getting them back again. Of course, things even more impossible occupied our minds in sleep, but the lack of imagination in almost all the dreams which I dreamt myself or heard the others tell was quite striking. It would certainly be of great psychological interest if we had a record of all these dreams. You can imagine how we longed for sleep, when it offered each one of us all that he most eagerly desired.” Another quotation, this time from Du Prel: “Mungo Park, when nearly dying of thirst on a journey in Africa, dreamt continually of the well-watered hills and valleys of his home. So Trenck, tormented with hunger in the redoubt at Magdebourg, saw himself in his dreams surrounded by sumptuous meals; and George Back, who took part in Franklin’s first expedition, when on the point of dying of hunger owing to their terrible privations, dreamt regularly of abundant food to eat.”
Anyone who has made himself thirsty at night by eating highly-seasoned dishes at supper is likely to dream of drinking. Of course it is not possible to relieve acute hunger or thirst by dreaming; in that case we awake thirsty and are obliged to drink real water. The service of the dream is here of little practical account, but it is none the less clear that it was called up for the purpose of protecting sleep from the stimulus impelling us to wake up and act. Where the intensity of the desire is less, ‘satisfaction’-dreams do often answer the purpose.
In the same way, when the stimulus is that of sexual desire the dream provides satisfaction, but of a kind which shows peculiarities worthy of mention. Since it is a characteristic of the sexual impulse that it is a degree less dependent on its object than are hunger and thirst, the satisfaction in a pollution-dream can be real; and, in consequence of certain difficulties in the relation to the object (which will be discussed later), it particularly often happens that the real satisfaction is yet connected with a vague or distorted dream-content. This peculiarity of pollution-dreams makes them, as O. Rank has observed, suitable objects for the study of dream-distortion. Moreover, with adults, dreams of desire usually contain besides the satisfaction something else, springing from a purely mental source and requiring interpretation if it is to be understood.
We do not maintain, by the way, that wish-fulfilment dreams of the infantile type occur in adults solely as reactions to the imperative desires I have mentioned. We are equally familiar with short clear dreams of this type, occasioned by certain dominating situations and unquestionably produced by mental stimuli. For example, there are ‘impatience’-dreams in which someone making preparations for a journey, for a theatrical performance in which he is specially interested, or for a lecture or a visit, has his expectations prematurely realized in a dream, and finds himself the night before the actual experience already at his journey’s end, at the theatre, or talking to the friend he is going to visit. Or again, there is the ‘comfort’-dream, rightly so-called, in which someone who wants to go on sleeping dreams that he has already got up, that he is washing, or is at school, while all the time he is really continuing his sleep, meaning that he would rather dream of getting up than do so in reality. In these dreams the desire for sleep, which we have recognized as regularly participating in dream-formation, expresses itself plainly and appears as their actual originator. The need for sleep ranks itself quite rightly with the other great physical needs.
I would refer you at this point to the reproduction of a picture by Schwind in the Schack Gallery at Munich[30] and would ask you to notice how correctly the artist has realized the way in which a dream arises out of a dominating situation. The picture is called The Prisoner’s Dream, and the subject of the dream must undoubtedly be his escape. It is a happy thought that the prisoner is to escape by the window, for it is through the window that the ray of light has entered and roused him from sleep. The gnomes standing one above the other no doubt represent the successive positions he would have to assume in climbing up to the window; and, if I am not mistaken and do not attribute too much intentional design to the artist, the features of the gnome at the top, who is filing the grating through (the very thing the prisoner himself would like to do), resemble the man’s own.
I have said that in all dreams, other than those of children and such as conform to the infantile type, we encounter the obstacle of distortion. We cannot immediately say whether they too are wish-fulfilments, as we are inclined to suppose, nor can we guess from their manifest content in what mental stimulus they originate, or prove that they, like the others, endeavour to remove or relieve the stimulus. They must, in fact, be interpreted, i.e. translated; the process of distortion must be reversed, and the manifest content replaced by the latent thought, before we can make any definite pronouncement whether what we have found out about infantile dreams may claim to hold good for all dreams alike.