The Interpretation of Dreams [622938]

Sigmund Freud
The Interpretation of Dreams
Sigmund Freud (1900)

The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
2Contents – Click on the Links Below
Preface
Chapter 1 (part 1) The Scientific Literature of
Dream-Problems (up to 1900)
Chapter1 (part 2)
Chapter 2 The Method of Dream Interpretation
Chapter 3 The Dream as Wish Fulfilment
Chapter 4 Distortion in Dreams
Chapter 5 (part 1) The Material and Sources of
DreamsChapter 5 (part 2)
Chapter 6 (part 1) The Dream-Work
Chapter 6 (part 2)
Chapter 6 (part 3)
Chapter 6 (part 4)
Chapter 7 (part 1) The Psychology of the
Dream Process
Chapter 7 (part 2)

The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
3PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
Wheras there was a space of nine years
between the first and second editions of this book,
the need of a third edition was apparent when little
more than a year had elapsed. I ought to be
gratified by this change; but if I was unwilling
previously to attribute the neglect of my work to its
small value, I cannot take the interest which is now
making its appearance as proof of its quality.
The advance of scientific knowledge has not
left The Interpretation of Dreams untouched. When I
wrote this book in 1899 there was as yet no "sexual
theory," and the analysis of the more complicated
forms of the psychoneuroses was still in its infancy.The interpretation of dreams was intended as an
expedient to facilitate the psychological analysis of
the neuroses; but since then a profounder
understanding of the neuroses has contributed
towards the comprehension of the dream. The
doctrine of dream-interpretation itself has evolved in
a direction which was insufficiently emphasized in

The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
4the first edition of this book. From my own
experience, and the works of Stekel and other
writers, [ 1] I have since learned to appreciate more
accurately the significance of symbolism in dreams(or rather, in unconscious thought). In the course of
years, a mass of data has accumulated which
demands consideration. I have endeavored to deal
with these innovations by interpolations in the text
and footnotes. If these additions do not always quiteadjust themselves to the framework of the treatise,
or if the earlier text does not everywhere come up to
the standard of our present knowledge, I must beg
indulgence for this deficiency, since it is only the
result and indication of the increasingly rapid
advance of our science. I will even venture to
predict the directions in which further editions of this
book- should there be a demand for them- may
diverge from previous editions. Dream-
interpretation must seek a closer union with the rich
material of poetry, myth, and popular idiom, and itmust deal more faithfully than has hitherto been

The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
5possible with the relations of dreams to the neuroses
and to mental derangement.
Herr Otto Rank has afforded me valuable
assistance in the selection of supplementary
examples, and has revised the proofs of this edition.
I have to thank him and many other colleagues for
their contributions and corrections.
Vienna, 1911 – [1] Omitted in subsequent editions.

The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
6PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
That there should have been a demand for a
second edition of this book–a book which cannot bedescribed as easy to read–before the completion of
its first decade is not to be explained by the interest
of the professional circles to which I was addressing
myself. My psychiatric colleagues have not,
apparently, attempted to look beyond the
astonishment which may at first have been arousedby my novel conception of the dream; and the
professional philosophers, who are anyhow
accustomed to disposing of the dream in a few
sentences- mostly the same- as a supplement to the
states of consciousness, have evidently failed to
realize that precisely in this connection it was
possible to make all manner of deductions, such as
must lead to a fundamental modification of our
psychological doctrines. The attitude of the scientific
reviewers was such to lead me to expect that the
fate of the book would be to fall into oblivion; andthe little flock of faithful adherents, who follow my

The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
7lead in the therapeutic application of psycho-
analysis, and interpret dreams by my method, could
not have exhausted the first edition of this book. I
feel, therefore, that my thanks are due to the wider
circle of cultured and inquiring readers whose
sympathy has induced me, after the lapse of nine
years, once more to take up this difficult work,
which has so many fundamental bearings.
I am glad to be able to say that I found
little in the book that called for alteration. Here andthere I have interpolated fresh material, or have
added opinions based on more extensive experience,
or I have sought to elaborate individual points; but
the essential passages treating of dreams and their
interpretation, and the psychological doctrines to be
deduced therefrom, have been left unaltered;
subjectively, at all events, they have stood the test
of time. Those who are acquainted with my other
writings (on the aetiology and mechanism of the
psychoneuroses) will know that I never offerunfinished work as finished, and that I have always

The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
8endeavoured to revise my conclusions in accordance
with my maturing opinions; but as regards the
subject of the dream-life, I am able to stand by my
o r i g i n a l t e x t . I n m y m a n y y e a r s ' w o r k u p o n t h e
problems of the neuroses I have often hesitated,
and I have often gone astray; and then it was
always the interpretation of dreams that restored
my self-confidence. My many scientific opponents
are actuated by a wise instinct when they decline tofollow me into the region of oneirology.
Even the material of this book, even my
own dreams, defaced by time or superseded, by
means of which I have demonstrated the rules of
dream-interpretation, revealed, when I came to
revise these pages, a continuity that resisted
revision. For me, of course, this book has an
additional subjective significance, which I did not
understand until after its completion. It reveals itself
to me as a piece of my self-analysis, as my reaction
to the death of my father, that is, to the mostimportant event, the most poignant loss in a man's

The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
9life. Once I had realized this, I felt that I could not
obliterate the traces of this influence. But to my
readers the material from which they learn to
evaluate and interpret dreams will be a matter of
indifference.
Where an inevitable comment could not be
fitted into the old context, I have indicated by
square brackets that it does not occur in the first
edition.[2]
Berchtesgaden, 1908 –
[2] Omitted in subsequent editions.

The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
10 INTRODUCTORY NOTE (to the first
edition)
In this volume I have attempted to expound
the methods and results of dream-interpretation;
and in so doing I do not think I have overstepped
the boundary of neuro-pathological science. For the
dream proves on psychological investigation to be
the first of a series of abnormal psychic formations,
a series whose succeeding members- the hystericalphobias, the obsessions, the delusions- must, for
practical reasons, claim the attention of the
physician. The dream, as we shall see, has no title
to such practical importance, but for that very
reason its theoretical value as a typical formation is
all the greater, and the physician who cannot
explain the origin of dream-images will strive in vain
to understand the phobias and the obsessive and
delusional ideas, or to influence them by therapeutic
methods.
But the very context to which our subject
owes its importance must be held responsible for the

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11deficiencies of the following chapters. The abundant
lacunae in this exposition represent so many points
of contact at which the problem of dream-formation
is linked up with the more comprehensive problems
of psycho- pathology; problems which cannot be
treated in these pages, but which, if time and
powers suffice and if further material presents itself,
may be elaborated elsewhere.
The peculiar nature of the material
employed to exemplify the interpretation of dreamshas made the writing even of this treatise a difficult
task. Consideration of the methods of dream-
interpretation will show why the dreams recorded in
the literature on the subject, or those collected by
persons unknown to me, were useless for my
purpose; I had only the choice between my own
dreams and those of the patients whom I was
treating by psychoanalytic methods. But this later
material was inadmissible, since the dream-
processes were undesirably complicated by theintervention of neurotic characters. And if I relate

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 12my own dreams I must inevitably reveal to the gaze
of strangers more of the intimacies of my psychic
life than is agreeable to me, and more than seems
fitting in a writer who is not a poet but a scientific
investigator. To do so is painful, but unavoidable; I
have submitted to the necessity, for otherwise I
could not have demonstrated my psychological
conclusions. Sometimes, of course, I could not resist
the temptation to mitigate my indiscretions byomissions and substitutions; but wherever I have
done so the value of the example cited has been
very definitely diminished. I can only express the
hope that my readers will understand my difficult
position, and will be indulgent; and further, that all
those persons who are in any way concerned in the
dreams recorded will not seek to forbid our dream-
life at all events to exercise freedom of thought!

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 13CHAPTER 1 (Part 1)
THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE OF
DREAM-PROBLEMS (UP TO 1900)
In the following pages I shall demonstrate
that there is a psychological technique which makes
it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the
application of this technique every dream will reveal
itself as a psychological structure, full of
significance, and one which may be assigned to aspecific place in the psychic activities of the waking
state. Further, I shall endeavour to elucidate the
processes which underlie the strangeness and
obscurity of dreams, and to deduce from these
processes the nature of the psychic forces whose
conflict or cooperation is responsible for our dreams.
This done, my investigation will terminate, as it will
have reached the point where the problem of the
dream merges into more comprehensive problems,
and to solve these we must have recourse to
material of a different kind.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 14I shall begin by giving a short account of the
views of earlier writers on this subject, and of the
status of the dream-problem in contemporary
science; since in the course of this treatise I shall
not often have occasion to refer to either. In spite of
thousands of years of endeavour, little progress has
been made in the scientific understanding of
dreams. This fact has been so universally
acknowledged by previous writers on the subjectthat it seems hardly necessary to quote individual
opinions. The reader will find, in the works listed at
the end of this work, many stimulating observations,
and plenty of interesting material relating to our
subject, but little or nothing that concerns the true
nature of the dream, or that solves definitely any of
its enigmas. The educated layman, of course, knows
even less of the matter.
The conception of the dream that was held
in prehistoric ages by primitive peoples, and the
influence which it may have exerted on theformation of their conceptions of the universe, and

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 15of the soul, is a theme of such great interest that it
is only with reluctance that I refrain from dealing
with it in these pages. I will refer the reader to the
well-known works of Sir John Lubbock (Lord
Avebury), Herbert Spencer, E. B. Tylor, and other
writers; I will only add that we shall not realize the
importance of these problems and speculations until
we have completed the task of dream- interpretation
that lies before us.
A reminiscence of the concept of the dream
that was held in primitive times seems to underlie
the evaluation of the dream which was current
among the peoples of classical antiquity.[1] They
took it for granted that dreams were related to the
world of the supernatural beings in whom they
believed, and that they brought inspirations from
the gods and demons. Moreover, it appeared to
them that dreams must serve a special purpose in
respect of the dreamer; that, as a rule, they
predicted the future. The extraordinary variations inthe content of dreams, and in the impressions which

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 16they produced on the dreamer, made it, of course,
very difficult to formulate a coherent conception of
them, and necessitated manifold differentiations and
group-formations, according to their value and
reliability. The valuation of dreams by the individual
philosophers of antiquity naturally depended on the
importance which they were prepared to attribute to
manticism in general.
In the two works of Aristotle in which there
is mention of dreams, they are already regarded as
constituting a problem of psychology. We are told
that the dream is not god-sent, that it is not of
divine but of demonic origin. For nature is really
demonic, not divine; that is to say, the dream is not
a supernatural revelation, but is subject to the laws
of the human spirit, which has, of course, a kinship
with the divine. The dream is defined as the psychic
activity of the sleeper, inasmuch as he is asleep.
Aristotle was acquainted with some of the
characteristics of the dream-life; for example, heknew that a dream converts the slight sensations

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 17perceived in sleep into intense sensations ("one
imagines that one is walking through fire, and feels
hot, if this or that part of the body becomes only
quite slightly warm"), which led him to conclude that
dreams might easily betray to the physician the first
indications of an incipient physical change which
escaped observation during the day.[2]
As has been said, those writers of antiquity
who preceded Aristotle did not regard the dream asa product of the dreaming psyche, but as an
inspiration of divine origin, and in ancient times the
two opposing tendencies which we shall find
throughout the ages in respect of the evaluation of
the dream- life were already perceptible. The
ancients distinguished between the true and
valuable dreams which were sent to the dreamer as
warnings, or to foretell future events, and the vain,
fraudulent, and empty dreams whose object was to
misguide him or lead him to destruction.
Gruppe[3] speaks of such a classification of
dreams, citing Macrobius and Artemidorus: "Dreams

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 18were divided into two classes; the first class was
believed to be influenced only by the present (or the
past), and was unimportant in respect of the future;
it included the enuknia (insomnia), which directly
reproduce a given idea or its opposite; e.g., hunger
or its satiation; and the phantasmata, which
elaborate the given idea phantastically, as e.g. the
nightmare, ephialtes. The second class of dreams,
on the other hand, was determinative of the future.To this belonged:
1. Direct prophecies received in the dream
(chrematismos, oraculum);
2. the foretelling of a future event (orama,
visio);
3. the symbolic dream, which requires
interpretation (oneiros, somnium.)
This theory survived for many centuries."
Connected with these varying estimations of
the dream was the problem of "dream-
interpretation." Dreams in general were expected toyield important solutions, but not every dream was

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 19immediately understood, and it was impossible to be
sure that a certain incomprehensible dream did not
really foretell something of importance, so that an
effort was made to replace the incomprehensible
content of the dream by something that should be at
once comprehensible and significant. In later
antiquity Artemidorus of Daldis was regarded as the
greatest authority on dream-interpretation. His
comprehensive works must serve to compensate usfor the lost works of a similar nature[4] The pre-
scientific conception of the dream which obtained
among the ancients was, of course, in perfect
keeping with their general conception of the
universe, which was accustomed to project as an
external reality that which possessed reality only in
the life of the psyche. Further, it accounted for the
main impression made upon the waking life by the
morning memory of the dream; for in this memory
the dream, as compared with the rest of the psychic
content, seems to be something alien, coming, as itwere, from another world. It would be an error to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 20suppose that theory of the supernatural origin of
dreams lacks followers even in our own times; for
quite apart from pietistic and mystical writers- who
cling, as they are perfectly justified in doing, to the
remnants of the once predominant realm of the
supernatural until these remnants have been swept
away by scientific explanation- we not infrequently
find that quite intelligent persons, who in other
respects are averse from anything of a romanticnature, go so far as to base their religious belief in
the existence and co-operation of superhuman
spiritual powers on the inexplicable nature of the
phenomena of dreams (Haffner). The validity
ascribed to the dream-life by certain schools of
philosophy- for example, by the school of Schelling-
is a distinct reminiscence of the undisputed belief in
the divinity of dreams which prevailed in antiquity;
and for some thinkers the mantic or prophetic power
of dreams is still a subject of debate. This is due to
the fact that the explanations attempted bypsychology are too inadequate to cope with the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 21accumulated material, however strongly the
scientific thinker may feel that such superstitious
doctrines should be repudiated.
To write strongly the history of our scientific
knowledge of the dream- problem is extremely
difficult, because, valuable though this knowledge
may be in certain respects, no real progress in a
definite direction is as yet discernible. No real
foundation of verified results has hitherto beenestablished on which future investigators might
continue to build. Every new author approaches the
same problems afresh, and from the very beginning.
If I were to enumerate such authors in chronological
order, giving a survey of the opinions which each
has held concerning the problems of the dream, I
should be quite unable to draw a clear and complete
picture of the present state of our knowledge on the
subject. I have therefore preferred to base my
method of treatment on themes rather than on
authors, and in attempting the solution of each

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 22problem of the dream I shall cite the material found
in the literature of the subject.
But as I have not succeeded in mastering
the whole of this literature- for it is widely dispersed,
and interwoven with the literature of other subjects-
I must ask my readers to rest content with my
survey as it stands, provided that no fundamental
fact or important point of view has been overlooked.
Until recently most authors have been
inclined to deal with the subjects of sleep and
dreams in conjunction, and together with these they
have commonly dealt with analogous conditions of a
psycho-pathological nature, and other dream-like
phenomena, such as hallucinations, visions, etc. In
recent works, on the other hand, there has been a
tendency to keep more closely to the theme, and to
consider, as a special subject, the separate problems
of the dream-life. In this change I should like to
perceive an expression of the growing conviction
that enlightenment and agreement in such obscurematters may be attained only by a series of detailed

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 23investigations. Such a detailed investigation, and
one of a special psychological nature, is expounded
in these pages. I have had little occasion to concern
myself with the problem of sleep, as this is
essentially a physiological problem, although the
changes in the functional determination of the
psychic apparatus should be included in a
description of the sleeping state. The literature of
sleep will therefore not be considered here.
A scientific interest in the phenomena of
dreams as such leads us to propound the following
problems, which to a certain extent, interdependent,
merge into one another.
A. The Relation of the Dream to the
Waking State
The naive judgment of the dreamer on
waking assumes that the dream- even if it does not
come from another world- has at all events
transported the dreamer into another world. The old
physiologist, Burdach, to whom we are indebted fora careful and discriminating description of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 24phenomena of dreams, expressed this conviction in
a frequently quoted passage (p. 474): "The waking
life, with its trials and joys, its pleasures and pains,
is never repeated; on the contrary, the dream aims
at relieving us of these. Even when our whole mind
is filled with one subject, when our hearts are rent
by bitter grief, or when some task has been taxing
our mental capacity to the utmost, the dream either
gives us something entirely alien, or it selects for itscombinations only a few elements of reality; or it
merely enters into the key of our mood, and
symbolizes reality." J. H. Fichte (I. 541) speaks in
precisely the same sense of supplementary dreams,
calling them one of the secret, self-healing benefits
of the psyche. L. Strumpell expresses himself to the
same effect in his Natur und Entstehung der
Traume, a study which is deservedly held in high
esteem. "He who dreams turns his back upon the
world of waking consciousness" (p. 16); "In the
dream the memory of the orderly content of wakingconsciousness and its normal behaviour is almost

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 25entirely lost" (p. 17); "The almost complete and
unencumbered isolation of the psyche in the dream
from the regular normal content and course of the
waking state…" (p. 19).
Yet the overwhelming majority of writers on
the subject have adopted the contrary view of the
relation of the dream to waking life. Thus Haffner (p.
19): "To begin with, the dream continues the waking
life. Our dreams always connect themselves withsuch ideas as have shortly before been present in
our consciousness. Careful examination will nearly
always detect a thread by which the dream has
linked itself to the experiences of the previous day."
Weygandt (p. 6) flatly contradicts the statement of
Burdach. "For it may often be observed, apparently
indeed in the great majority of dreams, that they
lead us directly back into everyday life, instead of
releasing us from it." Maury (p. 56) expresses the
same idea in a concise formula: "Nous revons de ce
que nous avons vu, dit, desire, ou fait."[5] Jessen,in his Psychologie, published in 1855 (p. 530), is

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 26rather more explicit: "The content of dreams is
always more or less determined by the personality,
the age, sex, station in life, education and habits,
and by the events and experiences of the whole past
life of the individual."
The philosopher, I. G. E. Maas, adopts the
most unequivocal attitude in respect of this question
(Uber die Leidenschaften, 1805): "Experience
corroborates our assertion that we dream mostfrequently of those things toward which our warmest
passions are directed. This shows us that our
passions must influence the generation of our
dreams. The ambitious man dreams of the laurels
which he has won (perhaps only in imagination), or
has still to win, while the lover occupies himself, in
his dreams, with the object of his dearest hopes….
All the sensual desires and loathings which slumber
in the heart, if they are stimulated by any cause,
may combine with other ideas and give rise to a
dream; or these ideas may mingle in an alreadyexisting dream."[6]

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 27The ancients entertained the same idea
concerning the dependence of the dream-content on
life. I will quote Radestock (p. 139): "When Xerxes,
before his expedition against Greece, was dissuaded
from his resolution by good counsel, but was again
and again incited by dreams to undertake it, one of
the old, rational dream-interpreters of the Persians,
Artabanus, told him, and very appropriately, that
dream-images for the most part contain that ofwhich one has been thinking in the waking state."
In the didactic poem of Lucretius, On the
Nature of Things (IV. 962), there occurs this
passage:
"Et quo quisque fere studio devinctus
adhaeret, aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante
morati atque in ea ratione fuit contenta magis mens,
in somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire; causidici
causas agere et componere leges, induperatores
pugnare ac proelia obire,"… etc., etc.[7] Cicero (De
Divinatione, II. LXVII) says, in a similar strain, asdoes also Maury many centuries later: "Maximeque

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 28'reliquiae' rerum earum moventur in animis et
agitantur, de quibus vigilantes aut cogitavimus aut
egimus."[8]
The contradiction between these two views
concerning the relation between dream life and
waking life seems indeed irresolvable. Here we may
usefully cite the opinion of F. W. Hildebrandt (1875),
who held that on the whole the peculiarities of the
dream can only be described as "a series ofcontrasts which apparently amount to
contradictions" (p. 8). "The first of these contrasts is
formed by the strict isolation or seclusion of the
dream from true and actual life on the one hand,
and on the other hand by the continuous
encroachment of the one upon the other, and the
constant dependence of the one upon the other. The
dream is something absolutely divorced from the
reality experienced during the waking state; one
may call it an existence hermetically sealed up and
insulated from real life by an unbridgeable chasm. Itfrees us from reality, blots out the normal

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 29recollection of reality, and sets us in another world
and a totally different life, which fundamentally has
nothing in common with real life…." Hildebrandt
then asserts that in falling asleep our whole being,
with its forms of existence, disappears "as through
an invisible trapdoor." In one's dream one is
perhaps making a voyage to St. Helena in order to
offer the imprisoned Napoleon an exquisite vintage
of Moselle. One is most affably received by the ex-emperor, and one feels almost sorry when, on
waking, the interesting illusion is destroyed. But let
us now compare the situation existing in the dream
with the actual reality. The dreamer has never been
a wine-merchant, and has no desire to become one.
He has never made a sea-voyage, and St. Helena is
the last place in the world that he would choose as
the destination of such a voyage. The dreamer feels
no sympathy for Napoleon, but on the contrary a
strong patriotic aversion. And lastly, the dreamer
was not yet among the living when Napoleon died onthe island of St. Helena; so that it was beyond the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 30realms of possibility that he should have had any
personal relations with Napoleon. The dream-
experience thus appears as something entirely
foreign, interpolated between two mutually related
and successive periods of time.
"Nevertheless," continues Hildebrandt, "the
apparent contrary is just as true and correct. I
believe that side by side with this seclusion and
insulation there may still exist the most intimateinterrelation. We may therefore justly say: Whatever
the dream may offer us, it derives its material from
reality, and from the psychic life centered upon this
reality. However extraordinary the dream may
seem, it can never detach itself from the real world,
and its most sublime as well as its most ridiculous
constructions must always borrow their elementary
material either from that which our eyes have
beheld in the outer world, or from that which has
already found a place somewhere in our waking
thoughts; in other words, it must be taken from that

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 31which we have already experienced, either
objectively or subjectively."
B. The Material of Dreams- Memory in
Dreams
That all the material composing the content
of a dream is somehow derived from experience,
that it is reproduced or remembered in the dream-
this at least may be accepted as an incontestable
fact. Yet it would be wrong to assume that such aconnection between the dream-content and reality
will be easily obvious from a comparison between
the two. On the contrary, the connection must be
carefully sought, and in quite a number of cases it
may for a long while elude discovery. The reason for
this is to be found in a number of peculiarities
evinced by the faculty of memory in dreams; which
peculiarities, though generally observed, have
hitherto defied explanation. It will be worth our
while to examine these characteristics exhaustively.
To begin with, it happens that certain
material appears in the dream- content which

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 32cannot be subsequently recognized, in the waking
state, as being part of one's knowledge and
experience. One remembers clearly enough having
dreamed of the thing in question, but one cannot
recall the actual experience or the time of its
occurrence. The dreamer is therefore in the dark as
to the source which the dream has tapped, and is
even tempted to believe in an independent
productive activity on the part of the dream, until,often long afterwards, a fresh episode restores the
memory of that former experience, which had been
given up for lost, and so reveals the source of the
dream. One is therefore forced to admit that in the
dream something was known and remembered that
cannot be remembered in the waking state.[9]
Delboeuf relates from his own experience an
especially impressive example of this kind. He saw
in his dream the courtyard of his house covered with
snow, and found there two little lizards, half-frozen
and buried in the snow. Being a lover of animals hepicked them up, warmed them, and put them back

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 33into the hole in the wall which was reserved
especially for them. He also gave them a few fronds
of a little fern which was growing on the wall, and of
which he knew they were very fond. In the dream
he knew the name of the plant; Asplenium ruta
muralis. The dream continued returning after a
digression to the lizards, and to his astonishment
Delboeuf saw two other little lizards falling upon
what was left of the ferns. On turning his eyes to theopen fields he saw a fifth and a sixth lizard making
for the hole in the wall, and finally the whole road
was covered by a procession of lizards, all
wandering in the same direction.
In his waking state Delboeuf knew only a
few Latin names of plants, and nothing of any
Asplenium. To his great surprise he discovered that
a fern of this name did actually exist, and that the
correct name was Asplenium ruta muraria, which the
dream had slightly distorted. An accidental
coincidence was of course inconceivable; yet where

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 34he got his knowledge of the name Asplenium in the
dream remained a mystery to him.
The dream occurred in 1862. Sixteen years
later, while at the house of one of his friends, the
philosopher noticed a small album containing dried
plants, such as are sold as souvenirs to visitors in
many parts of Switzerland. A sudden recollection
came to him: he opened the herbarium, discovered
therein the Asplenium of his dream, and recognizedhis own handwriting in the accompanying Latin
name. The connection could now be traced. In 1860,
two years before the date of the lizard dream, one
of his friend's sisters, while on her wedding-journey,
had paid a visit to Delboeuf. She had with her at the
time this very album, which was intended for her
brother, and Delboeuf had taken the trouble to
write, at the dictation of a botanist, the Latin name
under each of the dried plants.
The same good fortune which gave this
example its unusual value enabled Delboeuf to traceyet another portion of this dream to its forgotten

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 35source. One day in 1877 he came upon an old
volume of an illustrated periodical, in which he found
the whole procession of lizards pictured, just as he
had dreamt of it in 1862. The volume bore the date
1861, and Delboeuf remembered that he had
subscribed to the journal since its first appearance.
That dreams have at their disposal
recollections which are inaccessible to the waking
state is such a remarkable and theoreticallyimportant fact that I should like to draw attention to
the point by recording yet other hypermnesic
dreams. Maury relates that for some time the word
Mussidan used to occur to him during the day. He
knew it to be the name of a French city, but that
was all. One night he dreamed of a conversation
with a certain person, who told him that she came
from Mussidan, and, in answer to his question as to
where the city was, she replied: "Mussidan is the
principal town of a district in the department of
Dordogne." On waking, Maury gave no credence tothe information received in his dream; but the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 36gazetteer showed it to be perfectly correct. In this
case the superior knowledge of the dreamer was
confirmed, but it was not possible to trace the
forgotten source of this knowledge.
Jessen (p. 55) refers to a very similar
incident, the period of which is more remote.
"Among others we may here mention the dream of
the elder Scaliger (Hennings, l.c., p. 300), who
wrote a poem in praise of the famous men ofVerona, and to whom a man named Brugnolus
appeared in a dream, complaining that he had been
neglected. Though Scaliger could not remember that
he had heard of the man, he wrote some verses in
his honour, and his son learned subsequently that a
certain Brugnolus had at one time been famed in
Verona as a critic."
A hypermnesic dream, especially remarkable
for the fact that a memory not at first recalled was
afterwards recognized in a dream which followed the
first, is narrated by the Marquis d'Hervey de St.Denis:[10] "I once dreamed of a young woman with

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 37fair golden hair, whom I saw chatting with my sister
as she showed her a piece of embroidery. In my
dream she seemed familiar to me; I thought,
indeed, that I had seen her repeatedly. After
waking, her face was still quite vividly before me,
but I was absolutely unable to recognize it. I fell
asleep again; the dream-picture repeated itself. In
this new dream I addressed the golden-haired lady
and asked her whether I had not had the pleasure ofmeeting her somewhere. 'Of course,' she replied;
'don't you remember the bathing-place at Pornic?'
Thereupon I awoke, and I was then able to recall
with certainty and in detail the incidents with which
this charming dream-face was connected."
The same author[11] recorded that a
musician of his acquaintance once heard in a dream
a melody which was absolutely new to him. Not until
many years later did he find it in an old collection of
musical compositions, though still he could not
remember ever having seen it before.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 38I believe that Myers has published a whole
collection of such hypermnesic dreams in the
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,
but these, unfortunately, are inaccessible to me. I
think everyone who occupies himself with dreams
will recognize, as a very common phenomenon, the
fact that a dream will give proof of the knowledge
and recollection of matters of which the dreamer, in
his waking state, did not imagine himself to becognizant. In my analytic investigations of nervous
patients, of which I shall speak later, I find that it
happens many times every week that I am able to
convince them, from their dreams, that they are
perfectly well acquainted with quotations, obscene
expressions, etc., and make use of them in their
dreams, although they have forgotten them in their
waking state. I shall here cite an innocent example
of dream-hypermnesia, because it was easy to trace
the source of the knowledge which was accessible
only in the dream.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 39A patient dreamed amongst other things (in
a rather long dream) that he ordered a kontuszowka
in a cafe, and after telling me this he asked me what
it could be, as he had never heard the name before.
I was able to tell him that kontuszowka was a Polish
liqueur, which he could not have invented in his
dream, as the name had long been familiar to me
from the advertisements. At first the patient would
not believe me, but some days later, after he hadallowed his dream of the cafe to become a reality,
he noticed the name on a signboard at a street
corner which for some months he had been passing
at least twice a day.
I have learned from my own dreams how
largely the discovery of the origin of individual
dream-elements may be dependent on chance.
Thus, for some years before I had thought of writing
this book, I was haunted by the picture of a church
tower of fairly simple construction, which I could not
remember ever having seen. I then suddenlyrecognized it, with absolute certainty, at a small

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 40station between Salzburg and Reichenhall. This was
in the late nineties, and the first time I had travelled
over this route was in 1886. In later years, when I
was already busily engaged in the study of dreams,
I was quite annoyed by the frequent recurrence of
the dream-image of a certain peculiar locality. I saw,
in definite orientation to my own person- on my left-
a dark space in which a number of grotesque
sandstone figures stood out. A glimmeringrecollection, which I did not quite believe, told me
that it was the entrance to a beer-cellar; but I could
explain neither the meaning nor the origin of this
dream-picture. In 1907 I happened to go to Padua,
which, to my regret, I had been unable to visit since
1895. My first visit to this beautiful university city
had been unsatisfactory. I had been unable to see
Giotto's frescoes in the church of the Madonna dell'
Arena: I set out for the church, but turned back on
being informed that it was closed for the day. On my
second visit, twelve years later, I thought I wouldcompensate myself for this disappointment, and

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 41before doing anything else I set out for Madonna
dell' Arena. In the street leading to it, on my left,
probably at the spot where I had turned back in
1895, I discovered the place, with its sandstone
figures, which I had so often seen in my dream. It
was, in fact, the entrance to a restaurant garden.
One of the sources from which dreams draw
material for reproduction- material of which some
part is not recalled or utilized in our wakingthoughts- is to be found in childhood. Here I will cite
only a few of the authors who have observed and
emphasized this fact:
Hildebrandt (p. 23): "It has already been
expressly admitted that a dream sometimes brings
back to the mind, with a wonderful power of
reproduction, remote and even forgotten
experiences from the earliest periods of one's life."
Strumpell (p. 40): "The subject becomes
more interesting still when we remember how the
dream sometimes drags out, as it were, from thedeepest and densest psychic deposits which later

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 42years have piled upon the earliest experiences of
childhood, the pictures of certain persons, places
and things, quite intact, and in all their original
freshness. This is confined not merely to such
impressions as were vividly perceived at the time of
their occurrence, or were associated with intense
psychological values, to recur later in the dream as
actual reminiscences which give pleasure to the
waking mind. On the contrary, the depths of thedream-memory rather contain such images of
persons, places, things and early experiences as
either possessed but little consciousness and no
psychic value whatsoever, or have long since lost
both, and therefore appear totally strange and
unknown, both in the dream and in the waking
state, until their early origin is revealed."
Volkelt (p. 119): "It is especially to be
remarked how readily infantile and youthful
reminiscences enter into our dreams. What we have
long ceased to think about, what has long since lost

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 43all importance for us, is constantly recalled by the
dream."
The control which the dream exercises over
material from our childhood, most of which, as is
well known, falls into the lacunae of our conscious
memory, is responsible for the production of
interesting hypermnesic dreams, of which I shall cite
a few more examples.
Maury relates (p. 92) that as a child he often
went from his native city, Meaux, to the
neighbouring Trilport, where his father was
superintending the construction of a bridge. One
night a dream transported him to Trilport and he
was once more playing in the streets there. A man
approached him, wearing a sort of uniform. Maury
asked him his name, and he introduced himself,
saying that his name was C, and that he was a
bridge-guard. On waking, Maury, who still doubted
the actuality of the reminiscence, asked his old
servant, who had been with him in his childhood,whether she remembered a man of this name. "Of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 44course," was the reply; "he used to be watchman on
the bridge which your father was building then."
Maury records another example, which
demonstrates no less clearly the reliability of the
reminiscences of childhood that emerge in our
dreams. M. F., who as a child had lived in
Montbrison, decided, after an absence of twenty-five
years, to visit his home and the old friends of his
family. The night before his departure he dreamtthat he had reached his destination, and that near
Montbrison he met a man whom he did not know by
sight, and who told him that he was M. F., a friend
of his father's. The dreamer remembered that as a
child he had known a gentleman of this name, but
on waking he could no longer recall his features.
Several days later, having actually arrived at
Montbrison, he found once more the locality of his
dream, which he had thought was unknown to him,
and there he met a man whom he at once
recognized as the M. F. of his dream, with only this

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 45difference, that the real person was very much older
than his dream-image.
Here I might relate one of my own dreams,
in which the recalled impression takes the form of
an association. In my dream I saw a man whom I
recognized, while dreaming, as the doctor of my
native town. His face was not distinct, but his
features were blended with those of one of my
schoolmasters, whom I still meet from time to time.What association there was between the two
persons I could not discover on waking, but upon
questioning my mother concerning the doctor I
learned that he was a one- eyed man. The
schoolmaster, whose image in my dream obscured
that of the physician, had also only one eye. I had
not seen the doctor for thirty- eight years, and as
far as I know I had never thought of him in my
waking state, although a scar on my chin might
have reminded me of his professional attentions.
As though to counterbalance the excessive
part which is played in our dreams by the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 46impressions of childhood, many authors assert that
the majority of dreams reveal elements drawn from
our most recent experiences. Robert (p. 46) even
declares that the normal dream generally occupies
itself only with the impressions of the last few days.
We shall find, indeed, that the theory of the dream
advanced by Robert absolutely requires that our
oldest impressions should be thrust into the
background, and our most recent ones brought tothe fore. However, the fact here stated by Robert is
correct; this I can confirm from my own
investigations. Nelson, an American author, holds
that the impressions received in a dream most
frequently date from the second day before the
dream, or from the third day before it, as though the
impressions of the day immediately preceding the
dream were not sufficiently weakened and remote.
Many authors who are unwilling to question
the intimate connection between the dream-content
and the waking state have been struck by the factthat the impressions which have intensely occupied

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 47t h e w a k i n g m i n d a p p e a r i n d r e a m s o n l y a f t e r t h e y
have been to some extent removed from the mental
activities of the day. Thus, as a rule, we do not
dream of a beloved person who is dead while we are
still overwhelmed with sorrow (Delage). Yet Miss
Hallam, one of the most recent observers, has
collected examples which reveal the very opposite
behaviour in this respect, and upholds the claims of
psychological individuality in this matter.
The third, most remarkable, and at the same
time most incomprehensible, peculiarity of memory
in dreams is shown in the selection of the material
reproduced; for here it is not, as in the waking
state, only the most significant things that are held
to be worth remembering, but also the most
indifferent and insignificant details. In this
connection I will quote those authors who have
expressed their surprise in the most emphatic
language.
Hildebrandt (p. 11): "For it is a remarkable
fact that dreams do not, as a rule, take their

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 48elements from important and far-reaching events, or
from the intense and urgent interests of the
preceding day, but from unimportant incidents, from
the worthless odds and ends of recent experience or
of the remoter past. The most shocking death in our
family, the impressions of which keep us awake long
into the night, is obliterated from our memories until
the first moment of waking brings it back to us with
distressing force. On the other hand, the wart on theforehead of a passing stranger, to whom we did not
give a moment's thought once he was out of sight,
finds a place in our dreams."
Strumpell (p. 39) speaks of "cases in which
the analysis of a dream brings to light elements
which, although derived from the experiences of
yesterday or the day before yesterday, were yet so
unimportant and worthless for the waking state that
they were forgotten soon after they were
experienced. Some experiences may be the chance-
heard remarks of other persons, or their superficiallyobserved actions, or, fleeting perceptions of things

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 49or persons, or isolated phrases that we have read,
etc."
Havelock Ellis (p. 727): "The profound
emotions of waking life, the questions and problems
on which we spend our chief voluntary mental
energy, are not those which usually present
themselves at once to dream- consciousness. It is,
so far as the immediate past is concerned, mostly
the trifling, the incidental, the 'forgotten'impressions of daily life which reappear in our
dreams. The psychic activities that are awake most
intensely are those that sleep most profoundly."
It is precisely in connection with these
characteristics of memory in dreams that Binz (p.
45) finds occasion to express dissatisfaction with the
explanations of dreams which he himself had
favoured: "And the normal dream raises similar
questions. Why do we not always dream of mental
impressions of the day before, instead of going
back, without any perceptible reason, to the almostforgotten past, now lying far behind us? Why, in a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 50dream, does consciousness so often revive the
impression of indifferent memory- pictures, while
the cerebral cells that bear the most sensitive
records of experience remain for the most part inert
and numb, unless an acute revival during the
waking state has quite recently excited them?"
We can readily understand how the strange
preference shown by the dream- memory for the
indifferent and therefore disregarded details of dailyexperience must commonly lead us altogether to
overlook the dependence of dreams on the waking
state, or must at least make it difficult for us to
prove this dependence in any individual case. Thus it
happened that in the statistical treatment of her own
and her friend's dream, Miss Whiton Calkins found
that 11 per cent of the entire number showed no
relation to the waking state. Hildebrandt was
certainly correct in his assertion that all our dream-
images could be genetically explained if we devoted
enough time and material to the tracing of theirorigin. To be sure, he calls this "a most tedious and

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 51thankless job. For most often it would lead us to
ferret out all sorts of psychically worthless things
from the remotest corners of our storehouse of
memories, and to bring to light all sorts of quite
indifferent events of long ago from the oblivion
which may have overtaken them an hour after their
occurrence." I must, however, express my regret
that this discerning author refrained from following
the path which at first sight seemed so unpromising,for it would have led him directly to the central point
of the explanation of dreams.
The behaviour of memory in dreams is
surely most significant for any theory of memory
whatsoever. It teaches us that "nothing which we
have once psychically possessed is ever entirely
lost" (Scholz, p. 34); or as Delboeuf puts it, "que
toute impression, meme la plus insignificante, laisse
une trace inalterable, indifiniment susceptible de
reparaitre au jour";[12] a conclusion to which we
are urged by so many other pathologicalmanifestations of mental life. Let us bear in mind

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 52this extraordinary capacity of the memory in
dreams, in order the more keenly to realize the
contradiction which has to be put forward in certain
dream-theories to be mentioned later, which seek to
explain the absurdities and incoherences of dreams
b y a p a r t i a l f o r g e t t i n g o f w h a t w e h a v e k n o w n
during the day.
It might even occur to one to reduce the
phenomenon of dreaming to that of remembering,and to regard the dream as the manifestation of a
reproductive activity, unresting even at night, which
is an end in itself. This would seem to be in
agreement with statements such as those made by
Pilcz, according to which definite relations between
the time of dreaming and the contents of a dream
may be demonstrated, inasmuch as the impressions
reproduced by the dream in deep sleep belong to
the remote past, while those reproduced towards
morning are of recent origin. But such a conception
is rendered improbable from the outset by themanner in which the dream deals with the material

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 53to be remembered. Strumpell rightly calls our
attention to the fact that repetitions of experiences
do not occur in dreams. It is true that a dream will
make a beginning in that direction, but the next link
is wanting; it appears in a different form, or is
replaced by something entirely novel. The dream
gives us only fragmentary reproductions; this is so
far the rule that it permits of a theoretical
generalization. Still, there are exceptions in whichan episode is repeated in a dream as completely as
it can be reproduced by our waking memory.
Delboeuf relates of one of his university colleagues
that a dream of his repeated, in all its details, a
perilous drive in which he escaped accident as if by
miracle. Miss Calkins mentions two dreams the
contents of which exactly reproduced an experience
of the previous day, and in a later chapter I shall
have occasion to give an example that came to my
knowledge of a childish experience which recurred
unchanged in a dream.[13]

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 54C. Dream-Stimuli and Sources
What is meant by dream-stimuli and dream-
sources may be explained by a reference to the
popular saying: "Dreams come from the stomach."
This notion covers a theory which conceives the
dream as resulting from a disturbance of sleep. We
should not have dreamed if some disturbing element
had not come into play during our sleep, and the
dream is the reaction against this disturbance.
The discussion of the exciting causes of
dreams occupies a great deal of space in the
literature of dreams. It is obvious that this problem
could have made its appearance only after dreams
had become an object of biological investigation.
The ancients, who conceived of dreams as divine
inspirations, had no need to look for stimuli; for
them a dream was due to the will of divine or
demonic powers, and its content was the product of
their special knowledge and intention. Science,
however, immediately raised the question whetherthe stimuli of dreams were single or multiple, and

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 55this in turn led to the consideration whether the
causal explanation of dreams belonged to the region
of psychology or to that of physiology. Most authors
appear to assume that disturbance of sleep, and
hence dreams, may arise from various causes, and
that physical as well as mental stimuli may play the
part of dream-excitants. Opinions differ widely in
preferring this or the other factor as the cause of
dreams, and in classifying them in the order ofimportance.
Whenever the sources of dreams are
completely enumerated they fall into the following
four categories, which have also been employed in
the classification of dreams: (1) external (objective)
sensory stimuli; (2) internal (subjective) sensory
stimuli; (3) internal (organic) physical stimuli; (4)
Purely psychical sources of excitation.
1. External sensory stimuli
The younger Strumpell, the son of the
philosopher, whose work on dreams has alreadymore than once served us as a guide in considering

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 56t h e p r o b l e m s o f d r e a m s , h a s , a s i s w e l l k n o w n ,
recorded his observations of a patient afflicted with
general anaesthesia of the skin and with paralysis of
several of the higher sensory organs. This man
would laps into sleep whenever the few remaining
sensory paths between himself and the outer world
were closed. When we wish to fall asleep we are
accustomed to strive for a condition similar to that
obtaining in Strumpell's experiment. We close themost important sensory portals, the eyes, and we
endeavour to protect the other senses from all
stimuli or from any change of the stimuli already
acting upon them. We then fall asleep, although our
preparations are never wholly successful. For we can
never completely insulate the sensory organs, nor
can we entirely abolish the excitability of the
sensory organs themselves. That we may at any
time be awakened by intenser stimuli should prove
to us "that the mind has remained in constant
communication with the external world even during

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 57sleep." The sensory stimuli that reach us during
sleep may easily become the source of dreams.
There are a great many stimuli of this
nature, ranging from those unavoidable stimuli
which are proper to the state of sleep or occasionally
admitted by it, to those fortuitous stimuli which are
calculated to wake the sleeper. Thus a strong light
may fall upon the eyes, a noise may be heard, or an
odour may irritate the mucous membranes of thenose. In our unintentional movements during sleep
we may lay bare parts of the body, and thus expose
them to a sensation of cold, or by a change of
position we may excite sensations of pressure and
touch. A mosquito may bite us, or a slight nocturnal
mischance may simultaneously attack more than
one sense- organ. Observers have called attention
to a whole series of dreams in which the stimulus
ascertained on waking and some part of the dream-
content corresponded to such a degree that the
stimulus could be recognized as the source of thedream.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 58I shall here cite a number of such dreams,
collected by Jessen (p. 527), which are traceable to
more or less accidental objective sensory stimuli.
Every noise indistinctly perceived gives rise to
corresponding dream- representations; the rolling of
thunder takes us into the thick of battle, the crowing
of a cock may be transformed into human shrieks of
terror, and the creaking of a door may conjure up
dreams of burglars breaking into the house. Whenone of our blankets slips off us at night we may
dream that we are walking about naked, or falling
into water. If we lie diagonally across the bed with
our feet extending beyond the edge, we may dream
of standing on the brink of a terrifying precipice, or
of falling from a great height. Should our head
accidentally get under the pillow we may imagine a
huge rock overhanging us and about to crush us
under its weight. An accumulation of semen
produces voluptuous dreams, and local pains give
rise to ideas of suffering ill-treatment, of hostileattacks, or of accidental bodily injuries….

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 59"Meier (Versuch einer Erklarung des
Nachtwandelns, Halle, 1758, p. 33) once dreamed of
being attacked by several men who threw him flat
on the ground and drove a stake into the earth
between his first and second toes. While imagining
this in his dream he suddenly awoke and felt a piece
of straw sticking between his toes. The same author,
according to Hemmings (Von den Traumen und
Nachtwandlern, Weimar, 1784, p. 258), "dreamedon another occasion, when his nightshirt was rather
too tight round his neck, that he was being hanged.
In his youth Hoffbauer dreamed of having fallen
from a high wall, and found, on waking, that the
bedstead had come apart, and that he had actually
fallen on to the floor…. Gregory relates that he once
applied a hot-water bottle to his feet, and dreamed
of taking a trip to the summit of Mount Etna, where
he found the heat of the soil almost unbearable.
After having a blister applied to his head, another
man dreamed of being scalped by Indians; stillanother, whose shirt was damp, dreamed that he

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 60was dragged through a stream. An attack of gout
caused a patient to believe that he was in the hands
of the Inquisition, and suffering the pains of torture
(Macnish)."
The argument that there is a resemblance
between the dream-stimulus and the dream-content
would be confirmed if, by a systematic induction of
stimuli, we should succeed in producing dreams
corresponding to these stimuli. According to Macnishsuch experiments had already been made by Giron
de Buzareingues. "He left his knee exposed and
dreamed of travelling on a mail- coach by night. He
remarked, in this connection, that travellers were
well aware how cold the knees become in a coach at
night. On another occasion he left the back of his
head uncovered, and dreamed that he was taking
part in a religious ceremony in the open air. In the
country where he lived it was customary to keep the
head always covered except on occasions of this
kind."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 61Maury reports fresh observation on self-
induced dreams of his own. (A number of other
experiments were unsuccessful.)
1. He was tickled with a feather on his lips
and on the tip of his nose. He dreamed of an awful
torture, viz., that a mask of pitch was stuck to his
face and then forcibly torn off, bringing the skin with
it.
2. Scissors were whetted against a pair of
tweezers. He heard bells ringing, then sounds of
tumult which took him back to the days of the
Revolution of 1848.
3. Eau de Cologne was held to his nostrils.
He found himself in Cairo, in the shop of Johann
Maria Farina. This was followed by fantastic
adventures which he was not able to recall.
4. His neck was lightly pinched. He dreamed
that a blister was being applied, and thought of a
doctor who had treated him in childhood.
5. A hot iron was brought near his face. He
dreamed that chauffeurs[14] had broken into the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 62house, and were forcing the occupants to give up
their money by thrusting their feet into braziers. The
Duchesse d'Abrantes, whose secretary he imagined
himself to be then entered the room.
6. A drop of water was allowed to fall on to
his forehead. He imagined himself in Italy,
perspiring heavily, and drinking the white wine of
Orvieto.
7. When the light of a candle screened with
red paper was allowed to fall on his face, he
dreamed of thunder, of heat, and of a storm at sea
which he once witnessed in the English Channel.
Hervey, Weygandt, and others have made
attempts to produce dreams experimentally.
Many have observed the striking skill of the
dream in interweaving into its structure sudden
impressions from the outer world, in such a manner
as to represent a gradually approaching catastrophe
(Hildebrandt). "In former years," this author relates,
"I occasionally made use of an alarm-clock in orderto wake punctually at a certain hour in the morning.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 63It probably happened hundreds of times that the
sound of this instrument fitted into an apparently
very long and connected dream, as though the
entire dream had been especially designed for it, as
though it found in this sound its appropriate and
logically indispensable climax, its inevitable
denouement."
I shall presently have occasion to cite three
of these alarm-clock dreams in a differentconnection.
Volkelt (p. 68) relates: "A composer once
dreamed that he was teaching a class, and was just
explaining something to his pupils. When he had
finished he turned to one of the boys with the
question: 'Did you understand me?' The boy cried
out like one possessed 'Oh, ja!' Annoyed by this, he
reprimanded his pupil for shouting. But now the
entire class was screaming 'Orja,' then 'Eurjo,' and
finally 'Feuerjo.' He was then aroused by the actual
fire alarm in the street."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 64Garnier (Traite des facultes de l'ame, 1865),
on the authority of Radestock, relates that Napoleon
I, while sleeping in a carriage, was awakened from a
dream by an explosion which took him back to the
crossing of the Tagliamento and the bombardment
of the Austrians, so that he started up, crying, "We
have been undermined."
The following dream of Maury's has become
celebrated: He was ill in bed; his mother was sittingbeside him. He dreamed of the Reign of Terror
during the Revolution. He witnessed some terrible
scenes of murder, and finally he himself was
summoned before the Tribunal. There he saw
Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier-Tinville, and all the
sorry heroes of those terrible days; he had to give
an account of himself, and after all manner of
incidents which did not fix themselves in his
memory, he was sentenced to death. Accompanied
by an enormous crowd, he was led to the place of
execution. He mounted the scaffold; the executionertied him to the plank, it tipped over, and the knife of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 65the guillotine fell. He felt his head severed from his
trunk, and awakened in terrible anxiety, only to find
that the head-board of the bed had fallen, and had
actually struck the cervical vertebrae just where the
knife of the guillotine would have fallen.
This dream gave rise to an interesting
discussion, initiated by Le Lorrain and Egger in the
Revue Philosophique, as to whether, and how, it was
possible for the dreamer to crowd together anamount of dream-content apparently so large in the
short space of time elapsing between the perception
of the waking stimulus and the moment of actual
waking.
Examples of this nature show that objective
stimuli occurring in sleep are among the most
firmly-established of all the sources of dreams; they
are, indeed, the only stimuli of which the layman
knows anything whatever. If we ask an educated
person who is not familiar with the literature of
dreams how dreams originate, he is certain to replyby a reference to a case known to him in which a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 66dream has been explained after waking by a
recognized objective stimulus. Science, however,
cannot stop here, but is incited to further
investigation by the observation that the stimulus
influencing the senses during sleep does not appear
in the dream at all in its true form, but is replaced
by some other representation, which is in some way
related to it. But the relation existing between the
stimulus and the resulting dream is, according toMaury, "une affinite quelconque mais qui n'est pas
unique et exclusive"[15] (p. 72). If we read, for
example, three of Hildebrandt's "alarm-clock
dreams," we shall be compelled to ask why the
same casual stimulus evoked so many different
results, and why just these results and no others.
(p. 37): "I am taking a walk on a beautiful
spring morning. I stroll through the green meadows
to a neighbouring village, where I see numbers of
the inhabitants going to church, wearing their best
clothes and carrying their hymn-books under theirarms. I remember that it is Sunday, and that the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 67morning service will soon begin. I decide to attend
it, but as I am rather overheated I think I will wait in
the churchyard until I am cooler. While reading the
various epitaphs, I hear the sexton climbing the
church- tower, and I see above me the small bell
which is about to ring for the beginning of service.
For a little while it hangs motionless; then it begins
to swing, and suddenly its notes resound so clearly
and penetratingly that my sleep comes to an end.But the notes of the bell come from the alarm-
clock."
"A second combination. It is a bright winter
day; the streets are deep in snow. I have promised
to go on a sleigh-ride, but I have to wait some time
before I am told that the sleigh is at the door. Now I
am preparing to get into the sleigh. I put on my
furs, the foot-warmer is put in, and at last I have
taken my seat. But still my departure is delayed. At
last the reins are twitched, the horses start, and the
sleigh bells, now violently shaken, strike up theirfamiliar music with a force that instantly tears the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 68gossamer of my dream. Again it is only the shrill
note of my alarm-clock."
"Yet a third example. I see the kitchen-maid
walking along the passage to the dining-room, with
a pile of several dozen plates. The porcelain column
in her arms seems to me to be in danger of losing
its equilibrium. 'Take care,' I exclaim, 'you will drop
the whole pile!' The usual retort is naturally made-
that she is used to such things, etc. Meanwhile Icontinue to follow her with my anxious gaze, and
behold, at the threshold the fragile plates fall and
crash and roll across the floor in hundreds of pieces.
But I soon perceive that the endless din is not really
a rattling but a true ringing, and with this ringing
the dreamer now becomes aware that the alarm-
clock has done its duty."
The question why the dreaming mind
misjudges the nature of the objective sensory
stimulus has been answered by Strumpell, and in an
almost identical fashion by Wundt; their explanationis that the reaction of the mind to the stimulus

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 69attacking sleep is complicated and confused by the
formation of illusions. A sensory impression is
recognized by us and correctly interpreted- that is, it
is classed with the memory-group to which it
belongs according to all previous experience if the
impression is strong, clear, and sufficiently
prolonged, and if we have sufficient time to submit it
to those mental processes. But if these conditions
are not fulfilled we mistake the object which givesrise to the impression, and on the basis of this
impression we construct an illusion. "If one takes a
walk in an open field and perceives indistinctly a
distant object, it may happen that one will at first
take it for a horse." On closer inspection the image
of a cow, resting, may obtrude itself, and the picture
may finally resolve itself with certainty into a group
of people sitting on the ground. The impressions
which the mind receives during sleep from external
stimuli are of a similarly indistinct nature; they give
rise to illusions because the impression evokes agreater or lesser number of memory-images,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 70through which it acquires its psychic value. As for
the question, in which of the many possible spheres
of memory the corresponding images are aroused,
and which of the possible associative connections
are brought into play, that- to quote Strumpell
again- is indeterminable, and is left, as it were, to
the caprices of the mind.
Here we may take our choice. We may admit
that the laws of dream-formation cannot really betraced any further, and so refrain from asking
whether or not the interpretation of the illusion
evoked by the sensory impression depends upon still
other conditions; or we may assume that the
objective sensory stimulus encroaching upon sleep
plays only a modest role as a dream- source, and
that other factors determine the choice of the
memory-image to be evoked. Indeed, on carefully
examining Maury's experimentally produced dreams,
which I have purposely cited in detail, one is inclined
to object that his investigations trace the origin ofonly one element of the dreams, and that the rest of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 71the dream-content seems too independent and too
full of detail to be explained by a single requirement,
namely, that it must correspond with the element
experimentally introduced. Indeed, one even begins
to doubt the illusion theory, and the power of
objective impressions to shape the dream, when one
realizes that such impressions are sometimes
subjected to the most peculiar and far-fetched
interpretations in our dreams. Thus M. Simon tells ofa dream in which he saw persons of gigantic
stature[16] seated at a table, and heard distinctly
the horrible clattering produced by the impact of
their jaws as they chewed their food. On waking he
heard the clatter of a horse's hooves as it galloped
past his window. If in this case the sound of the
horse's hooves had revived ideas from the memory-
sphere of Gulliver's Travels, the sojourn with the
giants of Brobdingnag, and the virtuous horse-like
creatures- as I should perhaps interpret the dream
without any assistance on the author's part- ought

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 72not the choice of a memory-sphere so alien to the
stimulus to be further elucidated by other motives?
2. Internal (subjective) sensory stimuli
All objections to the contrary
notwithstanding, we must admit that the role of the
objective sensory stimuli as producers of dreams
has been indisputably established, and if, having
regard to their nature and their frequency, these
stimuli seem perhaps insufficient to explain alldream- pictures, this indicates that we should look
for other dream-sources which act in a similar
fashion. I do not know where the idea first arose
that together with the external sensory stimuli the
internal (subjective) stimuli should also be
considered, but as a matter of fact this has been
done more or less explicitly in all the more recent
descriptions of the aetiology of dreams. "I believe,"
says Wundt (p. 363), "that an important part is
played in dream-illusions by those subjective
sensations of sight and hearing which are familiar tous in the waking state as a luminous chaos in the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 73dark field of the vision, and a ringing, buzzing, etc.,
of the ears, and in especial, subjective irritations of
the retina. This explains the remarkable tendency of
dreams to delude the eyes with numbers of similar
or identical objects. Thus we see outspread before
our eyes innumerable birds, butterflies, fishes,
coloured beads, flowers, etc. Here the luminous dust
in the dark field of vision has assumed fantastic
forms, and the many luminous points of which itconsists are embodied in our dreams in as many
single images, which, owing to the mobility of the
luminous chaos, are seen as moving objects. This is
perhaps the reason of the dream's decided
preference for the most varied animal forms, for
owing to the multiplicity of such forms they can
readily adapt themselves to the subjective luminous
images."
The subjective sensory stimuli as a source of
dreams have the obvious advantage that, unlike
objective stimuli, they are independent of externalaccidents. They are, so to speak, at the disposal of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 74the interpretation whenever they are required. But
they are inferior to the objective sensory stimuli by
the fact that their claim to the role of dream-
inciters- which observation and experiment have
established in the case of objective stimuli- can in
their case be verified with difficulty or not at all. The
main proof of the dream-inciting power of subjective
sensory stimuli is afforded by the so-called
hypnogogic hallucinations, which have beendescribed by Johann Muller as "phantastic visual
manifestations." They are those very vivid and
changeable pictures which with many people occur
constantly during the period of falling asleep, and
which may linger for a while even after the eyes
have been opened. Maury, who was very subject to
these pictures, made a thorough study of them, and
maintained that they were related to or rather
identical with dream-images. This had already been
asserted by Johann Muller. Maury maintains that a
certain psychic passivity is necessary for theirorigin; that it requires a relaxation of the intensity of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 75attention (p. 59). But one may perceive a
hypnogogic hallucination in any frame of mind if one
falls into such a lethargy for a moment, after which
one may perhaps wake up, until this oft-repeated
process terminates in sleep. According to Maury, if
one wakes up shortly after such an experience, it is
often possible to trace in the dream the images
which one has perceived before falling asleep as
hypnogogic hallucinations (p. 134). Thus Maury onone occasion saw a series of images of grotesque
figures with distorted features and curiously dressed
hair, which obtruded themselves upon him with
incredible importunity during the period of falling
asleep, and which, upon waking, he recalled having
seen in his dream. On another occasion, while
suffering from hunger, because he was subjecting
himself to a rather strict diet, he saw in one of his
hypnogogic states a plate, and a hand armed with a
fork taking some food from the plate. In his dream
he found himself at a table abundantly supplied withfood, and heard the clatter of the diner's forks. On

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 76yet another occasion, after falling asleep with
strained and painful eyes, he had a hypnogogic
hallucination of microscopically small characters,
which he was able to decipher, one by one, only
with a great effort; and on waking from sleep an
hour later he recalled a dream in which there was an
open book with very small letters, which he was
obliged to read through with laborious effort.
Not only pictures, but auditory hallucinations
of words, names, etc., may also occur
hypnogogically, and then repeat themselves in the
dream, like an overture announcing the principal
motif of the opera which is to follow.
A more recent observer of hypnogogic
hallucinations, G. Trumbull Ladd, follows the same
lines as Johann Muller and Maury. By dint of practice
he succeeded in acquiring the faculty of suddenly
arousing himself, without opening his eyes, two to
five minutes after gradually falling asleep. This
enabled him to compare the disappearing retinalsensations with the dream- images remaining in his

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 77memory. He assures us that an intimate relation
between the two can always be recognized,
inasmuch as the luminous dots and lines of light
spontaneously perceived by the retina produce, so
to speak, the outline or scheme of the psychically
perceived dream-images. For example, a dream in
which he saw before him clearly printed lines, which
he read and studied, corresponded with a number of
luminous spots arranged in parallel lines; or, toexpress it in his own words: The clearly printed page
resolved itself into an object which appeared to his
waking perception like part of an actual printed page
seen through a small hole in a sheet of paper, but at
a distance too great to permit of its being read.
Without in any way underestimating the central
element of the phenomenon, Ladd believes that
hardly any visual dream occurs in our minds that is
not based on material furnished by this internal
condition of retinal irritability. This is particularly
true of dreams which occur shortly after fallingasleep in a dark room, while dreams occurring in the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 78morning, near the period of waking, receive their
stimulus from the objective light penetrating the eye
in a brightly-lit room. The shifting and infinitely
variable character of the spontaneous luminous
excitations of the retina exactly corresponds with
the fitful succession of images presented to us in our
dreams. If we attach any importance to Ladd's
observations, we cannot underrate the
productiveness of this subjective source of stimuli;for visual images, as we know, are the principal
constituents of our dreams. The share contributed
by the other senses, excepting, perhaps, the sense
of hearing, is relatively insignificant and inconstant.
3. Internal (organic) physical stimuli
If we are disposed to look for the sources of
dreams not outside but inside the organism, we
must remember that almost all our internal organs,
which in a state of health hardly remind us of their
existence, may, in states of excitation- as we call
them- or in disease, become a source of the mostpainful sensations, and must therefore be put on a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 79par with the external excitants of pain and
sensation. Strumpell, for example, gives expression
to a long-familiar experience when he declares that
"during sleep the psyche becomes far more deeply
and broadly conscious of its coporality than in the
waking state, and it is compelled to receive and to
be influenced by certain stimulating impressions
originating in parts of the body, and in alterations of
the body, of which it is unconscious in the wakingstate." Even Aristotle declares it to be quite possible
that a dream may draw our attention to incipient
morbid conditions which we have not noticed in the
waking state (owing to the exaggerated intensity of
the impressions experienced in the dream; and
some medical authors, who certainly did not believe
in the prophetic nature of dreams, have admitted
the significance of dreams, at least in so far as the
predicting of disease is concerned. [Cf. M. Simon, p.
31, and many earlier writers.][17]
Among the Greeks there were dream
oracles, which were vouchsafed to patients in quest

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 80of recovery. The patient betook himself to the
temple of Apollo or Aesculapius; there he was
subjected to various ceremonies, bathed, rubbed
and perfumed. A state of exaltation having been
thus induced, he was made to lie down in the temple
on the skin of a sacrificial ram. He fell asleep and
dreamed of remedies, which he saw in their natural
form, or in symbolic images which the priests
afterwards interpreted.
For further references concerning the
remedial dreams of the Greeks, cf. Lehmann, i, 74;
Bouche-Leclerq; Hermann, Gottesd. Altert. d. Gr.,
SS 41; Privataltert. SS 38, 16; Bottinger in
Sprengel's Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Med., ii, p. 163, et
seq.; W. Lloyd, Magnetism and Mesmerism in
Antiquity, London, 1877; Dollinger, Heidentum und
Judentum, p. 130.
Even in our days there seems to be no lack
of authenticated examples of such diagnostic
achievements on the part of dreams. Thus Tissiecites from Artigues (Essai sur la valeur

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 81semeiologique des Reves) the history of a woman of
forty-three, who, during several years of apparently
perfect health, was troubled with anxiety-dreams,
and in whom a medical examination subsequently
revealed an incipient affection of the heart, to which
she presently succumbed.
Serious derangements of the internal organs
clearly excite dreams in quite a number of persons.
The frequency of anxiety-dreams in diseases of theheart and lungs has been generally realized; indeed,
this function of the dream-life is emphasized by so
many writers that I shall here content myself with a
reference to the literature of the subject (Radestock,
Spitta, Maury, M. Simon, Tissie). Tissie even
believes that the diseased organs impress upon the
dream-content its characteristic features. The
dreams of persons suffering from diseases of the
heart are generally very brief, and end in a terrified
awakening; death under terrible circumstances
almost always find a place in their content. Thosesuffering from diseases of the lungs dream of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 82suffocation, of being crushed, and of flight, and a
great many of them are subject to the familiar
nightmare- which, by the way, Borner has
succeeded in inducing experimentally by lying on the
face and covering the mouth and nostrils. In
digestive disturbances the dream contains ideas
from the sphere of gustatory enjoyment and disgust.
Finally, the influence of sexual excitement on the
dream-content is obvious enough in everyone'sexperience, and provides the strongest confirmation
of the whole theory of dream-instigation by organic
sensation.
Moreover, if we study the literature of
dreams it becomes quite evident that some writers
(Maury, Weygandt) have been led to the study of
dream- problems by the influence their own
pathological state has had on the content of their
dreams.
The enlargement of the number of dream-
sources by such undeniably established facts is,however, not so important as one might be led to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 83suppose; for dreams are, after all, phenomena
which occur in healthy persons- perhaps in all
persons, and every night- and a pathological state of
the organs is evidently not one of the indispensable
conditions. For us, however, the question is not
whence particular dreams originate, but rather:
what is the exciting cause of ordinary dreams in
normal people?
But we have only to go a step farther to find
a source of dreams which is more prolific than any
of those mentioned above, and which promises
indeed to be inexhaustible. If it is established that
the bodily organs become, in sickness, an exciting
source of dreams, and if we admit that the mind,
when diverted during sleep from the outer world,
can devote more of its attention to the interior of
the body, we may readily assume that the organs
need not necessarily become diseased in order to
permit stimuli, which in one way or another grow
into dream-images, to reach the sleeping mind.What in the waking state we vaguely perceive as a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 84general sensation, perceptible by its quality alone- a
sensation to which, in the opinion of physicians, all
the organic systems contribute their share- this
general sensation would at night attain a greater
potency, and, acting through its individual
components, would constitute the most prolific as
well as the most usual source of dream-
representations. We should then have to discover
the laws by which organic stimuli are translated intodream- representations.
This theory of the origin of dreams is the
one most favoured by all medical writers. The
obscurity which conceals the essence of our being-
the "moi splanchnique" as Tissie terms it- from our
knowledge, and the obscurity of the origin of
dreams, correspond so closely that it was inevitable
that they should be brought into relation with one
another. The theory according to which the organic
sensations are responsible for dreams has,
moreover, another attraction for the physician,inasmuch as it favours the aetiological union of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 85dream with mental derangement, both of which
reveal so many points of agreement in their
manifestations, since changes in the general organic
massive sensation and in the stimuli emanating from
the internal organs are also considered to have a
far-reaching significance as regards the origin of the
psychoses. It is therefore not surprising that the
organic stimulus theory can be traced to several
writers who have propounded this theoryindependently.
A number of writers have followed the train
of thought developed by Schopenhauer in 1851. Our
conception of the universe has its origin in the
recasting by the intellect of the impressions which
reach it from without in the moulds of time, space
and causality. During the day the stimuli proceeding
from the interior of the organism, from the
sympathetic nervous system, exert at most an
unconscious influence on our mood. At night,
however, when the overwhelming effect of theimpressions of the day is no longer operative, the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 86impressions that surge upward from within are able
to force themselves on our attention- just as in the
night we hear the rippling of the brook that was
drowned in the clamour of the day. But how else can
the intellect react to these stimuli than by
transforming them in accordance with its own
function into things which occupy space and time
and follow the lines of causality?- and so a dream
originates. Thus Scherner, and after him Volkelt,endeavoured to discover the more intimate relations
between physical sensations and dream-pictures;
but we shall reserve the discussion of this point for
our chapter on the theory of dreams.
As a result of a singularly logical analysis,
the psychiatrist Krauss referred the origin of
dreams, and also of deliria and delusions, to the
same element, namely, to organically determined
sensations. According to him, there is hardly any
part of the organism which might not become the
starting-point of a dream or a delusion. Organicallydetermined sensations, he says, "may be divided

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 87into two classes: (1) general sensations- those
affecting the whole system; (2) specific sensations-
those that are immanent in the principal systems of
the vegetative organism, and which may in turn be
subdivided into five groups: (a) the muscular, (b)
the pneumatic, (c) the gastric, (d) the sexual, (e)
the peripheral sensations (p. 33 of the second
article)."
The origin of the dream-image from physical
sensations is conceived by Krauss as follows: The
awakened sensation, in accordance with some law of
association, evokes an idea or image bearing some
relation to it, and combines with this idea or image,
forming an organic structure, towards which,
however, the consciousness does not maintain its
normal attitude. For it does not bestow any attention
on the sensation, but concerns itself entirely with
the accompanying ideas; and this explains why the
facts of the case have been so long misunderstood
(p. 11 ff.). Krauss even gives this process the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 88special name of "transubstantiation of the sensations
into dream-images" (p. 24).
The influence of organic physical stimuli on
the formation of dreams is today almost universally
admitted, but the question as to the nature of the
law underlying this relation is answered in various
ways, and often obscurely. On the basis of the
theory of physical excitation the special task of
dream-interpretation is to trace back the content ofa dream to the causative organic stimulus, and if we
do not accept the rules of interpretation advanced
by Scherner, we shall often find ourselves
confronted by the awkward fact that the organic
source of excitation reveals itself only in the content
of the dream.
A certain agreement, however, appears in
the interpretation of the various forms of dreams
which have been designated as "typical," because
they recur in so many persons with almost the same
content. Among these are the well- known dreamsof falling from a height, of the dropping out of teeth,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 89of flying, and of embarrassment because one is
naked or scantily clad. This last type of dream is
said to be caused simply by the dreamer's
perception, felt in his sleep, that he has thrown off
the bedclothes and is uncovered. The dream that
one's teeth are dropping out is explained by "dental
irritation," which does not, however, of necessity
imply a morbid condition of irritability in the teeth.
According to Strumpell, the flying dream is theadequate image employed by the mind to interpret
the quantum of stimulus emanating from the rising
and sinking of the pulmonary lobes when the
cutaneous sensation of the thorax has lapsed into
insensibility. This latter condition causes the
sensation which gives rise to images of hovering in
the air. The dream of falling from a height is said to
be due to the fact that an arm falls away from the
body, or a flexed knee is suddenly extended, after
unconsciousness of the sensation of cutaneous
pressure has supervened, whereupon this sensationreturns to consciousness, and the transition from

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 90unconsciousness to consciousness embodies itself
psychically as a dream of falling (Strumpell, p. 118).
The weakness of these fairly plausible attempts at
explanation clearly lies in the fact that without any
further elucidation they allow this or that group of
organic sensations to disappear from psychic
perception, or to obtrude themselves upon it, until
the constellation favourable for the explanation has
been established. Later on, however, I shall haveoccasion to return to the subject of typical dreams
and their origin.
From a comparison of a series of similar
dreams, M. Simon endeavoured to formulate certain
rules governing the influence of organic sensations
on the nature of the resulting dream. He says (p.
34): "If during sleep any organic apparatus, which
normally participates in the expression of an affect,
for any reason enters into the state of excitation to
which it is usually aroused by the affect, the dream
thus produced will contain representations whichharmonize with that affect."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 91Another rule reads as follows (p. 35): "If,
during sleep, an organic apparatus is in a state of
activity, stimulation, or disturbance, the dream will
present ideas which correspond with the nature of
the organic function performed by that apparatus."
Mourly Vold has undertaken to prove the
supposed influence of bodily sensation on the
production of dreams by experimenting on a single
physiological territory. He changed the positions of asleeper's limbs, and compared the resulting dreams
with these changes. He recorded the following
results:
1. The position of a limb in a dream
corresponds approximately to that of reality, i.e., we
dream of a static condition of the limb which
corresponds with the actual condition.
2. When one dreams of a moving limb it
always happens that one of the positions occurring
in the execution of this movement corresponds with
the actual position.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 923. The position of one's own limb may in the
dream be attributed to another person.
4. One may also dream that the movement
in question is impeded.
5. The limb in any particular position may
appear in the dream as an animal or monster, in
which case a certain analogy between the two is
established.
6. The behaviour of a limb may in the dream
incite ideas which bear some relation or other to this
limb. Thus, for example, if we are using our fingers
we dream of numerals.
Results such as these would lead me to
conclude that even the theory of organic stimulation
cannot entirely abolish the apparent freedom of the
determination of the dream-picture which will be
evoked.[18]
4. Psychic sources of excitation
When considering the relation of dreams to
waking life, and the provenance of the material ofdreams, we learned that the earliest as well as the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 93most recent investigators are agreed that men
dream of what they do during the day, and of the
things that interest them in the waking state. This
interest, continued from waking life into sleep, is not
only a psychic bond, joining the dream to life, but it
is also a source of dreams whose importance must
not be underestimated, and which, taken together
with those stimuli which become active and of
interest during sleep, suffices to explain the origin ofall dream-images. Yet we have also heard the very
contrary of this asserted; namely, that dreams bear
the sleeper away from the interests of the day, and
that in most cases we do not dream of things which
have occupied our attention during the day until
after they have lost, for our waking life, the
stimulating force of belonging to the present. Hence
in the analysis of dream-life we are reminded at
every step that it is inadmissible to frame general
rules without making provision for qualifications by
introducing such terms as "frequently," "as a rule,"

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 94"in most cases," and without being prepared to
admit the validity of exceptions.
If interest during the waking state together
with the internal and external stimuli that occur
during sleep, sufficed to cover the whole aetiology of
dreams, we should be in a position to give a
satisfactory account of the origin of all the elements
of a dream; the problem of the dream-sources
would then be solved, leaving us only the task ofdiscriminating between the part played by the
psychic and that played by the somatic dream-
stimuli in individual dreams. But as a matter of fact
no such complete solution of a dream has ever been
achieved in any case, and everyone who has
attempted such a solution has found that
components of the dream- and usually a great many
of them- are left whose source he is unable to trace.
The interests of the day as a psychic source of
dreams are obviously not so influential as to justify
the confident assertion that every dreamer

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 95continues the activities of his waking life in his
dreams.
Other dream-sources of a psychic nature are
not known. Hence, with the exception perhaps of the
explanation of dreams given by Scherner, to which
reference will be made later on, all the explanations
found in the literature of the subject show a
considerable hiatus whenever there is a question of
tracing the images and ideas which are the mostcharacteristic material of dreams. In this dilemma
the majority of authors have developed a tendency
to belittle as far as possible the share of the psychic
factor, which is so difficult to determine, in the
evocation of dreams. To be sure, they distinguish as
major divisions the nerve-stimulus dream and the
association-dream, and assert that the latter has its
source exclusively in reproduction (Wundt, p. 365),
but they cannot dismiss the doubt as to "whether
they appear without any impulsion from organic
stimuli" (Volkelt, p. 127). And even thecharacteristic quality of the pure association-dream

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 96disappears. To quote Volkelt (p. 118): "In the
association-dream proper, there is no longer any
question of such a stable nucleus. Here the loose
grouping penetrates even to the very centre of the
dream. The imaginative life, already released from
the control of reason and intellect, is here no longer
held together by the more important psychical and
physical stimuli, but is left to its own uncontrolled
and confused divagations." Wundt, too, attempts tobelittle the psychic factor in the evocation of dreams
by asserting that "the phantasms of the dream are
perhaps unjustly regarded as pure hallucinations.
Probably most dream-representations are really
illusions, inasmuch as they emanate from the slight
sensory impressions which are never extinguished
during sleep" (p. 359, et seq.). Weygandt has
adopted this view, and generalizes upon it. He
asserts that "the most immediate causes of all
dream-representations are sensory stimuli to which
reproductive associations then attach themselves"(p. 17). Tissie goes still further in suppressing the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 97psychic sources of excitation (p. 183): "Les reves
d'origine absolument psychique n'existent pas";[19]
and elsewhere (p. 6), "Les pensees de nos reves
nous viennent de dehors…."[20]
Those writers who, like the eminent
philosopher Wundt, adopt a middle course, do not
hesitate to assert that in most dreams there is a
cooperation of the somatic stimuli and psychic
stimuli which are either unknown or are identifiedwith the interests of the day.
We shall learn later that the problem of
dream-formation may be solved by the disclosure of
an entirely unsuspected psychic source of excitation.
In the meanwhile we shall not be surprised at the
over-estimation of the influence of those stimuli
which do not originate in the psychic life. It is not
merely because they alone may easily be found, and
even confirmed by experiment, but because the
somatic conception of the origin of dreams entirely
corresponds with the mode of thought prevalent inmodern psychiatry. Here, it is true, the mastery of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 98the brain over the organism is most emphatically
stressed; but everything that might show that the
psychic life is independent of demonstrable organic
changes, or spontaneous in its manifestations, is
alarming to the contemporary psychiatrist, as
though such an admission must mean a return to
the old-world natural philosophy and the
metaphysical conception of the nature of the soul.
The distrust of the psychiatrist has placed thepsyche under tutelage, so to speak; it requires that
none of the impulses of the psyche shall reveal an
autonomous power. Yet this attitude merely betrays
a lack of confidence in the stability of the causal
concatenation between the physical and the psychic.
Even where on investigation the psychic may be
recognized as the primary cause of a phenomenon,
a more profound comprehension of the subject will
one day succeed in following up the path that leads
to the organic basis of the psychic. But where the
psychic must, in the present state of our knowledge,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 99be accepted as the terminus, it need not on that
account be disavowed.
D. Why Dreams Are Forgotten After
Waking
That a dream fades away in the morning is
proverbial. It is, indeed, possible to recall it. For we
know the dream, of course, only by recalling it after
waking; but we very often believe that we
remember it incompletely, that during the nightthere was more of it than we remember. We may
observe how the memory of a dream which in the
morning was still vivid fades in the course of the
day, leaving only a few trifling remnants. We are
often aware that we have been dreaming, but we do
not know of what we have dreamed; and we are so
well used to this fact- that the dream is liable to be
forgotten- that we do not reject as absurd the
possibility that we may have been dreaming even
when, in the morning, we know nothing either of the
content of the dream or of the fact that we havedreamed. On the other hand, it often happens that

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 100dreams manifest an extraordinary power of
maintaining themselves in the memory. I have had
occasion to analyse, with my patients, dreams which
occurred to them twenty-five years or more
previously, and I can remember a dream of my own
which is divided from the present day by at least
thirty-seven years, and yet has lost nothing of its
freshness in my memory. All this is very remarkable,
and for the present incomprehensible.
The forgetting of dreams is treated in the
most detailed manner by Strumpell. This forgetting
is evidently a complex phenomenon; for Strumpell
attributes it not to a single cause, but to quite a
number of causes.
In the first place, all those factors which
induce forgetfulness in the waking state determine
also the forgetting of dreams. In the waking state
we commonly very soon forget a great many
sensations and perceptions because they are too
slight to remember, and because they are chargedwith only a slight amount of emotional feeling. This

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 101is true also of many dream-images; they are
forgotten because they are too weak, while the
stronger images in their neighbourhood are
remembered. However, the factor of intensity is in
itself not the only determinant of the preservation of
dream-images; Strumpell, as well as other authors
(Calkins), admits that dream-images are often
rapidly forgotten although they are known to have
been vivid, whereas, among those that are retainedin the memory, there are many that are very
shadowy and unmeaning. Besides, in the waking
state one is wont to forget rather easily things that
have happened only once, and to remember more
readily things which occur repeatedly. But most
dream-images are unique experiences,[21] and this
peculiarity would contribute towards the forgetting
of all dreams equally. Of much greater significance
is a third cause of forgetting. In order that feelings,
representations, ideas and the like should attain a
certain degree of memorability, it is important thatthey should not remain isolated, but that they

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 102should enter into connections and associations of an
appropriate nature. If the words of a verse of poetry
are taken and mixed together, it will be very difficult
to remember them. "Properly placed, in a significant
sequence, one word helps another, and the whole,
making sense, remains and is easily and lastingly
fixed in the memory. Contradictions, as a rule, are
retained with just as much difficulty and just as
rarely as things that are confused and disorderly."Now dreams, in most cases, lack sense and order.
Dream-compositions, by their very nature, are
insusceptible of being remembered, and they are
forgotten because as a rule they fall to pieces the
very next moment. To be sure, these conclusions
are not entirely consistent with Radestock's
observation (p. 168), that we most readily retain
just those dreams which are most peculiar.
According to Strumpell, other factors,
deriving from the relation of the dream to the
waking state, are even more effective in causing usto forget our dreams. The forgetfulness of dreams

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 103manifested by the waking consciousness is evidently
merely the counterpart of the fact already
mentioned, namely, that the dream hardly ever
takes over an orderly series of memories from the
waking state, but only certain details of these
memories, which it removes from the habitual
psychic connections in which they are remembered
in the waking state. The dream-composition,
therefore, has no place in the community of thepsychic series which fill the mind. It lacks all
mnemonic aids. "In this manner the dream-structure
rises, as it were, from the soil of our psychic life,
and floats in psychic space like a cloud in the sky,
quickly dispelled by the first breath of reawakening
life" (p. 87). This situation is accentuated by the fact
that on waking the attention is immediately
besieged by the inrushing world of sensation, so that
very few dream-images are capable of withstanding
its force. They fade away before the impressions of
the new day like the stars before the light of thesun.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 104Finally, we should remember that the fact
that most people take but little interest in their
dreams is conducive to the forgetting of dreams.
Anyone who for some time applies himself to the
investigation of dreams, and takes a special interest
in them, usually dreams more during that period
than at any other; he remembers his dreams more
easily and more frequently.
Two other reasons for the forgetting of
dreams, which Bonatelli (cited by Benini) adds to
those adduced by Strumpell, have already been
included in those enumerated above; namely, (1)
that the difference of the general sensation in the
sleeping and the waking state is unfavourable to
mutual reproduction, and (2) that the different
arrangement of the material in the dream makes the
dream untranslatable, so to speak, for the waking
consciousness.
It is therefore all the more remarkable, as
Strumpell himself observes, that, in spite of all thesereasons for forgetting the dream, so many dreams

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 105are retained in the memory. The continual efforts of
those who have written on the subject to formulate
laws for the remembering of dreams amount to an
admission that here, too, there is something
puzzling and unexplained. Certain peculiarities
relating to the remembering of dreams have
attracted particular attention of late; for example,
the fact that the dream which is believed to be
forgotten in the morning may be recalled in thecourse of the day on the occasion of some
perception which accidentally touches the forgotten
content of the dream (Radestock, Tissie). But the
whole recollection of dreams is open to an objection
which is calculated greatly to depreciate its value in
critical eyes. One may doubt whether our memory,
which omits so much from the dream, does not
falsify what it retains.
This doubt as to the exactness of the
reproduction of dreams is expressed by Strumpell
when he says: "It may therefore easily happen thatthe waking consciousness involuntarily interpolates a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 106great many things in the recollection of the dream;
one imagines that one has dreamt all sorts of things
which the actual dream did not contain."
Jessen (p. 547) expresses himself in very
decided terms:
"Moreover, we must not lose sight of the
fact, hitherto little heeded, that in the investigation
and interpretation of coherent and logical dreams we
almost always take liberties with the truth when werecall a dream to memory. Unconsciously and
unintentionally we fill up the gaps and supplement
the dream-images. Rarely, and perhaps never, has a
connected dream been as connected as it appears to
us in memory. Even the most truth-loving person
can hardly relate a dream without exaggerating and
embellishing it in some degree. The human mind so
greatly tends to perceive everything in a connected
form that it intentionally supplies the missing links in
any dream which is in some degree incoherent."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 107The observations of V. Eggers, though of
course independently conceived, read almost like a
translation of Jessen's words:
"…L'observation des reves a ses difficultes
speciales et le seul moyen d'eviter toute erreur en
pareille matiere est de confier au papier sans le
moindre retard ce que l'on vient d'eprouver et de
remarquer; sinon, l'oubli vient vite ou total ou
partiel; l'oubli total est sans gravite; mais l'oublipartiel est perfide: car si l'on se met ensuite a
raconter ce que l'on n'a pas oublie, on est expose a
completer par imagination les fragments incoherents
et disjoints fourni par la memoire… on devient
artiste a son insu, et le recit, periodiquement repete
s'impose a la creance de son auteur, qui, de bonne
foi, le presente comme un fait authentique, dument
etabli selon les bonnes methodes…."[22]
Similarly Spitta, who seems to think that it
is only in the attempt to reproduce the dream that
we bring order and arrangement into looselyassociated dream-elements–"turning juxtaposition

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 108into concatenation; that is, adding the process of
logical connection which is absent in the dream."
Since we can test the reliability of our
memory only by objective means, and since such a
test is impossible in the case of dreams, which are
our own personal experience, and for which we
know no other source than our memory, what value
do our recollections of our dreams possess?
Footnotes
1The following remarks are based on
Buchsenschutz's careful essay, Traum und
Traumdeutung im Altertum (Berlin 1868).
2The relationship between dreams and
disease is discussed by Hippocrates in a chapter of
his famous work.
3Griechische Mythologie und
Religionsgeschichte, p. 390.
4For the later history of dream-interpretation
in the Middle Ages consult Diepgen, and the specialinvestigations of M. Forster, Gotthard, and others.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 109The interpretation of dreams among the Jews has
been studied by Amoli, Amram, and Lowinger, and
recently, with reference to the psycho- analytic
standpoint, by Lauer. Details of the Arabic methods
of dream- interpretation are furnished by Drexl, F.
Schwarz, and the missionary Tfinkdji. The
interpretation of dreams among the Japanese has
been investigated by Miura and Iwaya, among the
Chinese by Secker, and among the Indians byNegelein.
5We dream of what we have seen, said,
desired, or done.
6Communicated by Winterstein to the
Zentralblatt fur Psychoanalyse.
7And whatever be the pursuit to which one
clings with devotion, whatever the things on which
we have been occupied much in the past, the mind
being thus more intent upon that pursuit, it is
generally the same things that we seem to
encounter in dreams; pleaders to plead their cause

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 110and collate laws, generals to contend and engage
battle.
8And especially the "remnant" of our waking
thoughts and deeds move and stir within the soul.
9Vaschide even maintains that it has often
been observed that in one's dreams one speaks
foreign languages more fluently and with greater
purity than in the waking state.
10See Vaschide, p. 232.
11Vaschide, p. 233
12That every impression, even the most
insignificant, leaves an ineradicable mark,
indefinitely capable of reappearing by day.
13From subsequent experience I am able to
state that it is not at all rare to find in dreams
reproductions of simple and unimportant
occupations of everyday life, such as packing trunks,
preparing food in the kitchen, etc., but in such
dreams the dreamer himself emphasizes not the
character of the recollection but its "reality"- "Ireally did this during the day."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 11114Chauffeurs were bands of robbers in the
Vendee who resorted to this form of torture.
15A sort of relation which is, however,
neither unique nor exclusive.
16Gigantic persons in a dream justify the
assumption that the dream is dealing with a scene
from the dreamer's childhood. This interpretation of
the dream as a reminiscence of Gulliver's Travels is,
by the way, a good example of how aninterpretation should not be made. The dream-
interpreter should not permit his own intelligence to
operate in disregard of the dreamer's impressions.
17In addition to the diagnostic valuation of
dreams (e.g., by Hippocrates) mention must also be
made of their therapeutic significance in antiquity.
18See below for a further discussion of the
two volumes of records of dreams since published by
this writer.
19Dreams do not exist whose origin is totally
psychic.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 11220The thoughts of our dreams come from
outside.
21Periodically recurrent dreams have been
observed repeatedly. Compare the collection made
by Chabaneix.
22 …The observation of dreams has its
special difficulties, and the only way to avoid all
error in such matter is to put on paper without the
least delay what has just been experienced andnoticed; otherwise, totally or partially the dream is
quickly forgotten; total forgetting is without
seriousness; but partial forgetting is treacherous:
for, if one then starts to recount what has not been
forgotten, one is likely to supplement from the
imagination the incoherent and disjointed fragments
provided by the memory…. unconsciously one
becomes an artist, and the story, repeated from
time to time, imposes itself on the belief of its
author, who, in good faith, tells it as authentic fact,
regularly established according to propermethods….

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 113 CHAPTER 1 (Part 2)
THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE OF
DREAM-PROBLEMS (UP TO 1900)
E. The Psychological Peculiarities of
Dreams
In our scientific investigation of dreams we
start with the assumption that dreams are a
phenomenon of our own psychic activity; yet the
completed dream appears to us as something alien,whose authorship we are so little inclined to
recognize that we should be just as willing to say "A
dream came to me," as "I dreamed." Whence this
"psychic strangeness" of dreams? According to our
exposition of the sources of dreams, we must
assume that it is not determined by the material
which finds its way into the dream-content, since
this is for the most part common both to dream-life
and waking life. We might ask ourselves whether
this impression is not evoked by modifications of the
psychic processes in dreams, and we might evenattempt to suggest that the existence of such

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 114changes is the psychological characteristic of
dreams.
No one has more strongly emphasized the
essential difference between dream-life and waking
life and drawn more far reaching conclusions from
this difference than G. Th. Fechner in certain
observations contained in his Elemente der
Psychophysik (Part II, p. 520). He believes that
"neither the simple depression of conscious psychiclife under the main threshold," nor the distraction of
the attention from the influences of the outer world,
suffices to explain the peculiarities of dream-life as
compared with waking life. He believes, rather, that
the arena of dreams is other than the arena of the
waking life of the mind. "If the arena of
psychophysical activity were the same during the
sleeping and the waking state, the dream, in my
opinion, could only be a continuation of the waking
ideational life at a lower degree of intensity, so that
it would have to partake of the form and material ofthe latter. But this is by no means the case."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 115What Fechner really meant by such a
transposition of the psychic activity has never been
made clear, nor has anybody else, to my knowledge,
followed the path which he indicates in this remark.
An anatomical interpretation in the sense of
physiological localization in the brain, or even a
histological stratification of the cerebral cortex, must
of course be excluded. The idea might, however,
prove ingenious and fruitful if it could refer to apsychical apparatus built up of a number of
successive and connected systems.
Other authors have been content to give
prominence to this or that palpable psychological
peculiarity of the dream-life, and even to take this
as a starting-point for more comprehensive attempts
at explanation.
It has been justly remarked that one of the
chief peculiarities of dream-life makes its
appearance even in the state of falling asleep, and
may be defined as the sleep-heralding phenomenon.According to Schleiermacher (p. 351), the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 116distinguishing characteristic of the waking state is
the fact that its psychic activity occurs in the form of
ideas rather than in that of images. But the dream
thinks mainly in visual images, and it may be noted
that with the approach of sleep the voluntary
activities become impeded in proportion as
involuntary representations make their appearance,
the latter belonging entirely to the category of
images. The incapacity for such ideational activitiesas we feel to be deliberately willed, and the
emergence of visual images, which is regularly
connected with this distraction- these are two
constant characteristics of dreams, and on
psychological analysis we are compelled to recognize
them as essential characteristics of dream-life. As
for the images themselves the hypnogogic
hallucinations- we have learned that even in their
content they are identical with dream-images.[23]
Dreams, then, think preponderantly, but not
exclusively, in visual images. They make use also ofauditory images, and, to a lesser extent, of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 117other sensory impressions. Moreover, in dreams, as
in the waking state, many things are simply thought
or imagined (probably with the help of remnants of
verbal conceptions). Characteristic of dreams,
however, are only those elements of their contents
which behave like images, that is, which more
closely resemble perceptions than mnemonic
representations. Without entering upon a discussion
of the nature of hallucinations- a discussion familiarto every psychiatrist- we may say, with every well-
informed authority, that the dream hallucinates-
that is, that it replaces thoughts by hallucinations.
In this respect visual and acoustic impressions
behave in the same way. It has been observed that
the recollection of a succession of notes heard as we
are falling asleep becomes transformed, when we
have fallen asleep, into a hallucination of the same
melody, to give place, each time we wake, to the
fainter and qualitatively different representations of
the memory, and resuming, each time we doze offagain, its hallucinatory character.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 118The transformation of an idea into a
hallucination is not the only departure of the dream
from the more or less corresponding waking
thought. From these images the dream creates a
situation; it represents something as actually
present; it dramatizes an idea, as Spitta (p. 145)
puts it. But the peculiar character of this aspect of
the dream-life is completely intelligible only if we
admit that in dreaming we do not as a rule (theexceptions call for special examination) suppose
ourselves to be thinking, but actually experiencing;
that is, we accept the hallucination in perfectly good
faith. The criticism that one has experienced
nothing, but that one has merely been thinking in a
peculiar manner- dreaming- occurs to us only on
waking. It is this characteristic which distinguishes
the genuine dream from the day-dream, which is
never confused with reality.
The characteristics of the dream-life thus far
considered have been summed up by Burdach (p.476) as follows: "As characteristic features of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 119dream we may state (a) that the subjective activity
of our psyche appears as objective, inasmuch as our
perceptive faculties apprehend the products of
phantasy as though they were sensory activities…
(b) that sleep abrogates our voluntary action; hence
falling asleep involves a certain degree of passivity…
The images of sleep are conditioned by the
relaxation of our powers of will."
It now remains to account for the credulity
of the mind in respect to the dream-hallucinations
which are able to make their appearance only after
the suspension of certain voluntary powers.
Strumpell asserts that in this respect the psyche
behaves correctly and in conformity with its
mechanism. The dream-elements are by no means
mere representations, but true and actual
experiences of the psyche, similar to those which
come to the waking state by way of the senses (p.
34). Whereas in the waking state the mind thinks
and imagines by means of verbal images andlanguage, in dreams it thinks and imagines in actual

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 120perceptual images (p. 35). Dreams, moreover,
reveal a spatial consciousness, inasmuch as in
dreams, just as in the waking state, sensations and
images are transposed into outer space (p. 36). It
must therefore be admitted that in dreams the mind
preserves the same attitude in respect of images
and perceptions as in the waking state (p. 43). And
if it forms erroneous conclusions in respect of these
images and perceptions, this is due to the fact thatin sleep it is deprived of that criterion which alone
can distinguish between sensory perceptions
emanating from within and those coming from
without. It is unable to subject its images to those
tests which alone can prove their objective reality.
Further, it neglects to differentiate between those
images which can be exchanged at will and those in
respect of which there is no free choice. It errs
because it cannot apply the law of causality to the
content of its dreams (p. 58). In brief, its alienation
from the outer world is the very reason for its beliefin its subjective dream-world.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 121Delboeuf arrives at the same conclusion
through a somewhat different line of argument. We
believe in the reality of dream-pictures because in
sleep we have no other impressions with which to
compare them; because we are cut off from the
outer world. But it is not because we are unable,
when asleep, to test our hallucinations that we
believe in their reality. Dreams can make us believe
that we are applying such tests- that we aretouching, say, the rose that we see in our dream;
and yet we are dreaming. According to Delboeuf
there is no valid criterion that can show whether
something is a dream or a waking reality, except-
and that only pragmatically- the fact of waking. "I
conclude that all that has been experienced between
falling asleep and waking is a delusion, if I find on
waking that I am lying undressed in bed" (p. 84). "I
considered the images of my dream real while I was
asleep on account of the unsleeping mental habit of
assuming an outer world with which I can contrastmy ego."[24]

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 122If the turning-away from the outer world is
accepted as the decisive cause of the most
conspicuous characteristics of our dreams, it will be
worth our while to consider certain subtle
observations of Burdach's, which will throw some
light on the relation of the sleeping psyche to the
outer world, and at the same time serve to prevent
our over-estimating the importance of the above
deductions. "Sleep," says Burdach, "results onlyunder the condition that the mind is not excited by
sensory stimuli… yet it is not so much a lack of
sensory stimuli that conditions sleep as a lack of
interest in them;[25] some sensory impressions are
even necessary in so far as they serve to calm the
mind; thus the miller can fall asleep only when he
hears the clatter of his mill, and he who finds it
necessary, as a matter of precaution, to burn a light
at night, cannot fall asleep in the dark" (p. 457).
"During sleep the psyche isolates itself from
the outer world, and withdraws from theperiphery…. Nevertheless, the connection is not

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 123entirely broken; if one did not hear and feel during
sleep, but only after waking, one would assuredly
never be awakened at all. The continuance of
sensation is even more plainly shown by the fact
that we are not always awakened by the mere force
of the sensory impression, but by its relation to the
psyche. An indifferent word does not arouse the
sleeper, but if called by name he wakes… so that
even in sleep the psyche discriminates betweensensations…. Hence one may even be awakened by
the obliteration of a sensory stimulus, if this is
related to anything of imagined importance. Thus
one man wakes when the nightlight is extinguished,
and the miller when his mill comes to a standstill;
that is, waking is due to the cessation of a sensory
activity, and this presupposes that the activity has
been perceived, but has not disturbed the mind, its
effect being indifferent, or actually reassuring" (p.
46, etc.).
Even if we are willing to disregard these by
no means trifling objections, we must yet admit that

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 124the qualities of dream-life hitherto considered, which
are attributed to withdrawal from the outer world,
cannot fully account for the strangeness of dreams.
For otherwise it would be possible to reconvert the
hallucinations of the dream into mental images, and
the situations of the dream into thoughts, and thus
to achieve the task of dream-interpretation. Now
this is precisely what we do when we reproduce a
dream from memory after waking, and no matterwhether we are fully or only partially successful in
this retranslation, the dream still remains as
mysterious as before.
Furthermore, all writers unhesitatingly
assume that still other and profounder changes take
place in the plastic material of waking life. Strumpell
seeks to isolate one of these changes as follows: (p.
17) "With the cessation of active sensory perception
and of normal consciousness, the psyche is deprived
of the soil in which its feelings, desires, interests,
and activities are rooted. Those psychic states,feelings, interests, and valuations, which in the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 125waking state adhere to memory-images, succumb to
an obscuring pressure, in consequence of which
their connection with these images is severed; the
perceptual images of things, persons, localities,
events and actions of the waking state are,
individually, abundantly reproduced, but none of
these brings with it its psychic value. Deprived of
this, they hover in the mind dependent on their own
resources…"
This annihilation of psychic values, which is
in turn referred to a turning away from the outer
world, is, according to Strumpell, very largely
responsible for the impression of strangeness with
which the dream is coloured in our memory.
We have seen that the very fact of falling
asleep involves a renunciation of one of the psychic
activities- namely, the voluntary guidance of the
flow of ideas. Thus the supposition obtrudes itself
(though it is in any case a natural one) that the
state of sleep may extend even to the psychicfunctions. One or another of these functions is

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 126perhaps entirely suspended; we have now to
consider whether the rest continue to operate
undisturbed, whether they are able to perform their
normal work under the circumstances. The idea
occurs to us that the peculiarities of the dream may
be explained by the restricted activity of the psyche
during sleep, and the impression made by the dream
upon our waking judgment tends to confirm this
view. The dream is incoherent; it reconciles, withouthesitation, the worst contradictions; it admits
impossibilities; it disregards the authoritative
knowledge of the waking state, and it shows us as
ethically and morally obtuse. He who should behave
in the waking state as his dreams represent him as
behaving would be considered insane. He who in the
waking state should speak as he does in his dreams,
or relate such things as occur in his dreams, would
impress us as a feeble-minded or muddle-headed
person. It seems to us, then, that we are merely
speaking in accordance with the facts of the casewhen we rate psychic activity in dreams very low,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 127and especially when we assert that in dreams the
higher intellectual activities are suspended or at
least greatly impaired.
With unusual unanimity (the exceptions will
be dealt with elsewhere) the writers on the subject
have pronounced such judgments as lead
immediately to a definite theory or explanation of
dream-life. It is now time to supplement the resume
which I have just given by a series of quotationsfrom a number of authors- philosophers and
physicians- bearing upon the psychological
characteristics of the dream.
According to Lemoine, the incoherence of
the dream-images is the sole essential characteristic
of the dream.
Maury agrees with him (Le Sommeil, p.
163): "Il n'y a pas des reves absolument
raisonnables et qui ne contiennent quelque
incoherence, quelque absurdite."[26]
According to Hegel, quoted by Spitta, the
dream lacks any intelligible objective coherence.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 128Dugas says: "Les reve, c'est l'anarchie
psychique, affective et mentale, c'est le jeu des
fonctions livrees a elles-memes et s'exercant sans
controle et sans but; dans le reve l'esprit est un
automate spirituel."[27]
"The relaxation, dissolution, and
promiscuous confusion of the world of ideas and
images held together in waking life by the logical
power of the central ego" is conceded even byVolkelt (p. 14), according to whose theory the
psychic activity during sleep appears to be by no
means aimless.
The absurdity of the associations of ideas
which occur in dreams can hardly be more strongly
stigmatized than it was by Cicero (De Divinatione,
II. lxxi): "Nihil tam praepostere, tam incondite, tam
monstruose cogitari potest, quod non possimus
somniare."[28]
Fechner says (p. 522): "It is as though the
psychological activity of the brain of a reasonableperson were to migrate into that of a fool."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 129Radestock (p. 145): "It seems indeed
impossible to recognize any stable laws in this
preposterous behaviour. Withdrawing itself from the
s t r i c t p o l i c i n g o f t h e r a t i o n a l w i l l t h a t g u i d e s o u r
waking ideas, and from the processes of attention,
the dream, in crazy sport, whirls all things about in
kaleidoscopic confusion."
Hildebrandt (p. 45): "What wonderful jumps
the dreamer permits himself, for instance, in hischain of reasoning! With what unconcern he sees the
most familiar laws of experience turned upside
down! What ridiculous contradictions he is able to
tolerate in the order of nature and of society, before
things go too far, and the very excess of nonsense
leads to an awakening! Sometimes we quite
innocently calculate that three times three make
twenty; and we are not in the least surprised if a
dog recites poetry to us, if a dead person walks to
his grave, or if a rock floats on the water. We
solemnly go to visit the duchy of Bernburg or theprincipality of Liechtenstein in order to inspect its

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 130n a v y ; o r w e a l l o w o u r s e l v e s t o b e r e c r u i t e d a s a
volunteer by Charles XII just before the battle of
Poltava."
Binz (p. 33), referring to the theory of
dreams resulting from these impressions, says: "Of
ten dreams nine at least have an absurd content.
We unite in them persons or things which do not
bear the slightest relation to one another. In the
next moment, as in a kaleidoscope, the groupingchanges to one, if possible, even more nonsensical
and irrational than before; and so the shifting play
of the drowsy brain continues, until we wake, put a
hand to our forehead, and ask ourselves whether we
still really possess the faculty of rational imagination
and thought."
Maury, Le Sommeil (p. 50) makes, in
respect of the relation of the dream-image to the
waking thoughts, a comparison which a physician
will find especially impressive: "La production de ces
images que chez l'homme eveille fait le plus souventnaitre la volonte, correspond, pour l'intelligence, a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 131ce que sont pour la motilite certains mouvements
que nous offrent la choree et les affections
paralytiques…."[29] For the rest, he considers the
dream "toute une serie de degradations de la faculte
pensante et raisonnante"[30] (p. 27).
It is hardly necessary to cite the utterances
of those authors who repeat Maury's assertion in
respect of the higher individual psychic activities.
According to Strumpell, in dreams- and
even, of course, where the nonsensical nature of the
dream is not obvious- all the logical operations of
the mind, based on relations and associations,
recede into the background (p. 26). According to
Spitta (p. 148) ideas in dreams are entirely
withdrawn from the laws of causality; while
Radestock and others emphasize the feebleness of
judgment and logical inference peculiar to dreams.
According to Jodl (p. 123), there is no criticism in
dreams, no correcting of a series of perceptions by
the content of consciousness as a whole. The sameauthor states that "All the activities of consciousness

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 132occur in dreams, but they are imperfect, inhibited,
and mutually isolated." The contradictions of our
conscious knowledge which occur in dreams are
explained by Stricker and many others on the
ground that facts are forgotten in dreams, or that
the logical relations between ideas are lost (p. 98),
etc., etc.
Those authors who, in general, judge so
unfavourably of the psychic activities of the dreamernevertheless agree that dreams do retain a certain
remnant of psychic activity. Wundt, whose teaching
has influenced so many other investigators of
dream-problems, expressly admits this. We may
ask, what are the nature and composition of the
remnants of normal psychic life which manifest
themselves in dreams? It is pretty generally
acknowledged that the reproductive faculty, the
memory, seems to be the least affected in dreams;
it may, indeed, show a certain superiority over the
same function in waking life (see chapter I, B), eventhough some of the absurdities of dreams are to be

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 133explained by the forgetfulness of dream-life.
According to Spitta, it is the sentimental life of the
psyche which is not affected by sleep, and which
thus directs our dreams. By sentiment (Gemut) he
means "the constant sum of the emotions as the
inmost subjective essence of the man" (p. 84).
Scholz (p. 37) sees in dreams a psychic
activity which manifests itself in the "allegorizing
interpretation" to which the dream-material issubjected. Siebeck (p. 11) likewise perceives in
dreams a "supplementary interpretative activity" of
the psyche, which applies itself to all that is
observed and perceived. Any judgment of the part
played in dreams by what is presumed to be the
highest psychical function, i.e., consciousness,
presents a peculiar difficulty. Since it is only through
consciousness that we can know anything of
dreams, there can be no doubt as to its being
retained. Spitta, however, believes that only
consciousness is retained in the dream, but not self-

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 134consciousness. Delboeuf confesses that he is unable
to comprehend this distinction.
The laws of association which connect our
mental images hold good also for what is
represented in dreams; indeed, in dreams the
dominance of these laws is more obvious and
complete than in the waking state. Strumpell (p. 70)
says: "Dreams would appear to proceed either
exclusively in accordance with the laws of purerepresentation, or in accordance with the laws of
organic stimuli accompanied by such
representations; that is, without being influenced by
reflection, reason, aesthetic taste, or moral
judgment." The authors whose opinions I here
reproduce conceive the formation of the dream
somewhat as follows: The sum of sensory stimuli of
varying origin (discussed elsewhere) that are
operative in sleep at first awaken in the psyche a
number of images which present themselves as
hallucinations (according to Wundt, it is morecorrect to say "as illusions," because of their origin

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 135in external and internal stimuli). These combine with
one another in accordance with the known laws of
association, and, in accordance with the same laws,
they in turn evoke a new series of representations
(images). The whole of this material is then
elaborated as far as possible by the still active
remnant of the thinking and organizing faculties of
the psyche (cf. Wundt and Weygandt). Thus far,
however, no one has been successful in discerningthe motive which would decide what particular law
of association is to be obeyed by those images which
do not originate in external stimuli.
But it has been repeatedly observed that the
associations which connect the dream-images with
one another are of a particular kind, differing from
those found in the activities of the waking mind.
Thus Volkelt (p. 15): "In dreams the ideas chase
and seize upon one another on the strength of
accidental similarities and barely perceptible
connections. All dreams are pervaded by casual andunconstrained associations of this kind." Maury

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 136attaches great value to this characteristic of the
connection of ideas, for it allows him to draw a
closer analogy between the dream-life and certain
mental derangements. He recognizes two main
characteristics of "deliria": "(1) une action
spontanee et comme automatique de l'esprit; (2)
une association vicieuse et irreguliere des idees"[31]
(p. 126). Maury gives us two excellent examples
from his own dreams, in which the mere similarity ofsound decides the connection between the dream-
representations. Once he dreamed that he was on a
pilgrimage (pelerinage) to Jerusalem, or to Mecca.
After many adventures he found himself in the
company of the chemist Pelletier; the latter, after
some conversation, gave him a galvanized shovel
(pelle) which became his great broadsword in the
next portion of the dream (p. 137). In another
dream he was walking along a highway where he
read the distances on the kilometre-stones;
presently he found himself at a grocer's who had alarge pair of scales; a man put kilogramme weights

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 137into the scales, in order to weigh Maury; the grocer
then said to him: "You are not in Paris, but on the
island Gilolo." This was followed by a number of
pictures, in which he saw the flower lobelia, and
then General Lopez, of whose death he had read a
little while previously. Finally he awoke as he was
playing a game of lotto.[32]
We are, indeed, quite well aware that this
low estimate of the psychic activities of the dreamhas not been allowed to pass without contradiction
from various quarters. Yet here contradiction would
seem rather difficult. It is not a matter of much
significance that one of the depreciators of dream-
life, Spitta (p. 118), should assure us that the same
psychological laws which govern the waking state
rule the dream also, or that another (Dugas) should
state: "Le reve n'est pas deraison ni meme irraison
pure,"[33] so long as neither of them has attempted
to bring this opinion into harmony with the psychic
anarchy and dissolution of all mental functions in thedream which they themselves have described.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 138However, the possibility seems to have dawned
upon others that the madness of the dream is
perhaps not without its method- that it is perhaps
only a disguise, a dramatic pretence, like that of
Hamlet, to whose madness this perspicacious
judgment refers. These authors must either have
refrained from judging by appearances, or the
appearances were, in their case, altogether
different.
Without lingering over its superficial
absurdity, Havelock Ellis considers the dream as "an
archaic world of vast emotions and imperfect
thoughts," the study of which may acquaint us with
the primitive stages of the development of mental
life. J. Sully (p. 362) presents the same conception
of the dream in a still more comprehensive and
penetrating fashion. His statements deserve all the
more consideration when it is added that he,
perhaps more than any other psychologist, was
convinced of the veiled significance of the dream."Now our dreams are a means of conserving these

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 139successive personalities. When asleep we go back to
the old ways of looking at things and of feeling
about them, to impulses and activities which long
ago dominated us." A thinker like Delboeuf asserts-
without, indeed, adducing proof in the face of
contradictory data, and hence without real
justification- "Dans le sommeil, hormis la
perception, toutes les facultes de l'esprit,
intelligence, imagination, memoire, volonte,moralite, restent intactes dans leur essence;
seulement, elles s'appliquent a des objets
imaginaires et mobiles. Le songeur est un acteur qui
joue a volonte les fous et les sages, les bourreaux et
les victimes, les nains et les geants, les demons et
les anges"[34] (p. 222). The Marquis Hervey,[35]
who is flatly contradicted by Maury, and whose
essay I have been unable to obtain despite all my
efforts, appears emphatically to protest against the
under-estimation of the psychic capacity in the
dream. Maury speaks of him as follows (p. 19): "M.le Marquis Hervey prete a l'intelligence durant le

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 140sommeil toute sa liberte d'action et d'attention, et il
ne semble faire consister le sommeil que dans
l'occlusion des sens, dans leur fermeture au monde
exterieur; en sorte que l'homme qui dort ne se
distingue guere, selon sa maniere de voir, de
l'homme qui laisse vaguer sa pensee en se bouchant
les sens; toute la difference qui separe alors la
pensee ordinaire du celle du dormeur c'est que, chez
celui-ci, l'idee prend une forme visible, objective, etressemble, a s'y meprendre, a la sensation
determinee par les objets exterieurs; le souvenir
revet l'apparence du fait present."[36]
Maury adds, however, "qu'il y a une
difference de plus et capitale a savoir que les
facultes intellectuelles de l'homme endormi n'offrent
pas l'equilibre qu'elles gardent chez l'homme
eveille."[37]
In Vaschide, who gives us fully information
as to Hervey's book, we find that this author
expresses himself as follows, in respect to theapparent incoherence of dreams: "L'image du reve

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 141est la copie de l'idee. Le principal est l'idee; la vision
n'est pas qu'accessoire. Ceci etabli, il faut savoir
suivre la marche des idees, il faut savoir analyser le
tissu des reves; l'incoherence devient alors
comprehensible, les conceptions les plus fantasques
deviennent des faits simples et parfaitement
logiques"[38] (p. 146). And (p. 147): "Les reves les
plus bizarres trouvent meme une explication des
plus logiques quand on sait les analyser."[39]
J. Starke has drawn attention to the fact
that a similar solution of the incoherence of dreams
was put forward in 1799 by an old writer, Wolf
Davidson, who was unknown to me (p. 136): "The
peculiar leaps of our imaginings in the dream-state
all have their cause in the laws of association, but
this connection often occurs very obscurely in the
soul, so that we frequently seem to observe a leap
of the imagination where none really exists."
The evaluation of the dream as a psychic
product in the literature of the subject varies over avery wide scale; it extends from the extreme of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 142under-estimation, as we have already seen, through
premonitions that it may have a value as yet
unrevealed, to an exaggerated over-estimation,
which sets the dream-life far above the capacities of
waking life. In his psychological characterization of
dream-life, Hildebrandt, as we know, groups it into
three antinomies, and he combines in the third of
these antinomies the two extreme points of this
scale of values (p. 19): "It is the contrast between,on the one hand, an enhancement, an increase of
potentiality, which often amounts to virtuosity, and
on the other hand a decided diminution and
enfeeblement of the psychic life, often to a sub-
human level."
"As regards the first, who is there that
cannot confirm from his own experience the fact
that in the workings and weavings of the genius of
dreams, there are sometimes exhibited a profundity
and sincerity of emotion, a tenderness of feeling, a
clearness of view, a subtlety of observation and areadiness of wit, such as we should have modestly

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 143to deny that we always possessed in our waking life?
Dreams have a wonderful poetry, an apposite
allegory, an incomparable sense of humour, a
delightful irony. They see the world in the light of a
peculiar idealization, and often intensify the effect of
their phenomena by the most ingenious
understanding of the reality underlying them. They
show us earthly beauty in a truly heavenly radiance,
the sublime in its supremest majesty, and thatwhich we know to be terrible in its most frightful
form, while the ridiculous becomes indescribably and
drastically comical. And on waking we are
sometimes still so full of one of these impressions
that it will occur to us that such things have never
yet been offered to us by the real world."
One might here ask oneself: do these
depreciatory remarks and these enthusiastic praises
really refer to the self-same phenomenon? Have
some writers overlooked the foolish and others the
profound and sensitive dreams? And if both kinds ofdreams do occur- that is, dreams that merit both

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 144these judgments- does it not seem idle to seek a
psychological characterization of the dream? Would
it not suffice to state that everything is possible in
the dream, from the lowest degradation of the
psychic life to its flight to heights unknown in the
waking state? Convenient as such a solution might
be, it has this against it: that behind the efforts of
all the investigators of dreams there seems to lurk
the assumption that there is in dreams somecharacteristic which is universally valid in its
essential features, and which must eliminate all
these contradictions.
It is unquestionably true that the mental
capacities of dreams found readier and warmer
recognition in the intellectual period now lying
behind us, when philosophy rather than exact
natural science ruled the more intelligent minds.
Statements like that of Schubert, to the effect that
the dream frees the mind from the power of external
nature, that it liberates the soul from the chains ofsensory life, together with similar opinions

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 145expressed by the younger Fichte[40] and others,
who represent dreams as a soaring of the mind to a
higher plane- all these seem hardly conceivable to
us today; they are repeated at present only by
mystics and devotees.[41] With the advance of a
scientific mode of thought a reaction took place in
the estimation of dreams. It is the medical writers
who are most inclined to underrate the psychic
activity in dreams, as being insignificant andvalueless; while philosophers and unprofessional
observers- amateur psychologists- whose
contributions to the subject in especial must not be
overlooked, have for the most part, in agreement
with popular belief, laid emphasis on the
psychological value of dreams. Those who are
inclined to underrate the psychic activity of dreams
naturally show a preference for the somatic sources
of excitation in the aetiology of the dream; those
who admit that the dreaming mind may retain the
greater part of its waking faculties naturally have no

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 146motive for denying the existence of autonomous
stimulations
Among the superior accomplishments which
one may be tempted, even on a sober comparison,
to ascribe to the dream-life, that of memory is the
most impressive. We have fully discussed the by no
means rare experiences which prove this superiority.
Another privilege of the dream-life, often extolled by
the older writers- namely, the fact that it canoverstep the limitations of time and space- is easily
recognized as an illusion. This privilege, as
Hildebrandt remarks, is merely illusory; dreams
disregard time and space only as does waking
thought, and only because dreaming is itself a form
of thinking. Dreams are supposed to enjoy a further
advantage in respect of time- to be independent of
the passage of time in yet another sense. Dreams
like Maury's dream of his execution (p. 147 above)
seem to show that the perceptual content which the
dream can compress into a very short space of timefar exceeds that which can be mastered by our

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 147psychic activity in its waking thoughts. These
conclusions have, however, been disputed. The
essays of Le Lorrain and Egger on The Apparent
D u r a t i o n o f D r e a m s g a v e r i s e t o a l o n g a n d
interesting discussion, which in all probability has
not yet found the final explanation of this profound
and delicate problem.[42]
That dreams are able to continue the
intellectual activities of the day and to carry them toa point which could not be arrived at during the day,
that they may resolve doubts and problems, and
that they may be the source of fresh inspiration in
poets and composers, seems, in the light of
numerous records, and of the collection of instances
compiled by Chabaneix, to be proved beyond
question. But even though the facts may be beyond
dispute, their interpretation is subject to many
doubts on wider grounds.[43]
Finally, the alleged divinatory power of the
dream has become a subject of contention in whichalmost insuperable objections are confronted by

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 148obstinate and reiterated assertions. It is, of course,
right that we should refrain from denying that this
view has any basis whatever in fact, since it is quite
possible that a number of such cases may before
long be explained on purely natural psychological
grounds.
F. The Ethical Sense in Dreams
For reasons which will be intelligible only
after a consideration of my own investigations ofdreams, I have isolated from the psychology of the
dream the subsidiary problem as to whether and to
what extent the moral dispositions and feelings of
waking life extend into dream-life. The same
contradictions which we were surprised to observe in
the descriptions by various authors of all the other
psychic activities will surprise us again here. Some
writers flatly assert that dreams know nothing of
moral obligations; others as decidedly declare that
the moral nature of man persists even in his dream-
life.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 149Our ordinary experience of dreams seems to
confirm beyond all doubt the correctness of the first
assertion. Jessen says (p. 553): "Nor does one
become better or more virtuous during sleep; on the
contrary, it seems that conscience is silent in our
dreams, inasmuch as one feels no compassion and
can commit the worst crimes, such as theft, murder,
and homicide, with perfect indifference and without
subsequent remorse."
Radestock (p. 146) says: "It is to be noted
that in dreams associations are effected and ideas
combined without being in any way influenced by
reflection, reason, aesthetic taste, and moral
judgment; the judgment is extremely weak, and
ethical indifference reigns supreme."
Volkelt (p. 23) expresses himself as follows:
"As every one knows, dreams are especially
unbridled in sexual matters. Just as the dreamer
himself is shameless in the extreme, and wholly
lacking in moral feeling and judgment, so likewisedoes he see others, even the most respected

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 150persons, doing things which, even in his thoughts,
he would blush to associate with them in his waking
state."
Utterances like those of Schopenhauer, that
in dreams every man acts and talks in complete
accordance with his character, are in sharpest
contradiction to those mentioned above. R. Ph.
Fischer[44] maintains that the subjective feelings
and desires, or affects and passions, manifestthemselves in the wilfulness of the dream-life, and
that the moral characteristics of a man are mirrored
in his dreams.
Haffner says (p. 25): "With rare
exceptions… a virtuous man will be virtuous also in
his dreams; he will resist temptation, and show no
sympathy for hatred, envy, anger, and all other
vices; whereas the sinful man will, as a rule,
encounter in his dreams the images which he has
before him in the waking state."
Scholz (p. 36): "In dreams there is truth;
despite all camouflage of nobility or degradation, we

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 151recognize our own true selves…. The honest man
does not commit a dishonouring crime even in his
dreams, or, if he does, he is appalled by it as by
something foreign to his nature. The Roman
emperor who ordered one of his subjects to be
executed because he dreamed that he had cut off
the emperor's head was not far wrong in justifying
his action on the ground that he who has such
dreams must have similar thoughts while awake.Significantly enough, we say of things that find no
place even in our intimate thoughts: 'I would never
even dream of such a thing.'"
Plato, on the other hand, considers that they
are the best men who only dream the things which
other men do.
Plaff,[45] varying a familiar proverb, says:
"Tell me your dreams for a time and I will tell you
what you are within."
The little essay of Hildebrandt's from which I
have already taken so many quotations (the best-expressed and most suggestive contribution to the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 152literature of the dream-problem which I have
hitherto discovered), takes for its central theme the
problem of morality in dreams. For Hildebrandt, too,
it is an established rule that the purer the life, the
purer the dream; the impurer the life, the impurer
the dream.
The moral nature of man persists even in
dreams. "But while we are not offended or made
suspicious by an arithmetical error, no matter howobvious, by a reversal of scientific fact, no matter
how romantic, or by an anachronism, no matter how
ridiculous, we nevertheless do not lose sight of the
difference between good and evil, right and wrong,
virtue and vice. No matter how much of that which
accompanies us during the day may vanish in our
hours of sleep, Kant's categorical imperative dogs
our steps as an inseparable companion, of whom we
cannot rid ourselves even in our slumber…. This can
be explained only by the fact that the fundamental
element of human nature, the moral essence, is toofirmly fixed to be subjected to the kaleidoscopic

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 153shaking-up to which phantasy, reason, memory, and
other faculties of the same order succumb in our
dreams" (p. 45, etc.).
In the further discussion of the subject we
find in both these groups of authors remarkable
evasions and inconsequences. Strictly speaking, all
interest in immoral dreams should be at an end for
those who assert that the moral personality of the
individual falls to pieces in his dreams. They could ascoolly reject all attempts to hold the dreamer
responsible for his dreams, or to infer from the
immorality of his dreams that there is an immoral
strain in his nature, as they have rejected the
apparently analogous attempt to prove from the
absurdity of his dreams the worthlessness of his
intellectual life in the waking state. The others,
according to whom the categorical imperative
extends even into the dream, ought to accept in toto
the notion of full responsibility for immoral dreams;
and we can only hope that their own reprehensible

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 154dreams do not lead them to abandon their otherwise
firm belief in their own moral worth.
As a matter of fact, however, it would seem
that although no one is positively certain just how
good or how bad he is, he can hardly deny that he
can recollect immoral dreams of his own. That there
are such dreams no one denies; the only question
is: how do they originate? So that, in spite of their
conflicting judgments of dream-morality, bothgroups of authors are at pains to explain the genesis
of the immoral dream; and here a new conflict
arises, as to whether its origin is to be sought in the
normal functions of the psychic life, or in the
somatically conditioned encroachments upon this
life. The nature of the facts compels both those who
argue for and those who argue against moral
responsibility in dream-life to agree in recognizing a
special psychic source for the immorality of dreams.
Those who maintain that morality continues
to function in our dream-life nevertheless refrainfrom assuming full responsibility for their dreams.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 155Haffner says (p. 24): "We are not responsible for our
dreams, because that basis which alone gives our
life truth and reality is withdrawn from our thoughts
and our will. Hence the wishes and actions of our
dreams cannot be virtuous or sinful." Yet the
dreamer is responsible for the sinful dream in so far
as indirectly he brings it about. Thus, as in waking
life, it is his duty, just before going to sleep, morally
to cleanse his mind.
The analysis of this admixture of denial and
recognition of responsibility for the moral content of
dreams is carried much further by Hildebrandt. After
arguing that the dramatic method of representation
characteristic of dreams, the condensation of the
most complicated processes of reflection into the
briefest periods of time, and the debasement and
confusion of the imaginative elements of dreams,
which even he admits must be allowed for in respect
of the immoral appearance of dreams, he
nevertheless confesses that there are the mostserious objections to flatly denying all responsibility

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 156for the lapses and offenses of which we are guilty in
our dreams.
(p. 49): "If we wish to repudiate very
decisively any sort of unjust accusation, and
especially one which has reference to our intentions
and convictions, we use the expression: 'We should
never have dreamt of such a thing.' By this, it is
true, we mean on the one hand that we consider the
region of dreams the last and remotest place inwhich we could be held responsible for our thoughts,
because there these thoughts are so loosely and
incoherently connected with our real being that we
can, after all, hardly regard them as our own; but
inasmuch as we feel impelled expressly to deny the
existence of such thoughts even in this region, we
are at the same time indirectly admitting that our
justification would not be complete unless it
extended even thus far. And I believe that here,
although unconsciously, we are speaking the
language of truth."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 157(p. 52): "No dream-action can be imagined
whose first beginnings have not in some shape
already passed through the mind during our waking
hours, in the form of wish, desire, or impulse."
Concerning this original impulse we must say: The
dream has not discovered it- it has only imitated
and extended it; it has only elaborated into dramatic
form a scrap of historical material which it found
already existing within us; it brings to our mind thewords of the Apostle that he who hates his brother is
a murderer. And though, after we wake, being
conscious of our moral strength, we may smile at
the whole widely elaborated structure of the
depraved dream, yet the original material out of
which we formed it cannot be laughed away. One
feels responsible for the transgressions of one's
dreaming self; not for the whole sum of them, but
yet for a certain percentage. "In short, if in this
sense, which can hardly be impugned, we
understand the words of Christ, that out of the heartcome evil thoughts, then we can hardly help being

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 158convinced that every sin committed in our dreams
brings with it at least a vague minimum of guilt."
Thus Hildebrandt finds the source of the
immorality of dreams in the germs and hints of evil
impulses which pass through our minds during the
day as mental temptations, and he does not hesitate
to include these immoral elements in the ethical
evaluation of the personality. These same thoughts,
and the same evaluation of these thoughts, have, aswe know, caused devout and holy men of all ages to
lament that they were wicked sinners.[46]
The general occurrence of these contrasting
thoughts in the majority of men, and even in other
regions than the ethical, is of course established
beyond a doubt. They have sometimes been judged
in a less serious spirit. Spitta quotes a relevant
p a s s a g e f r o m A . Z e l l e r ( A r t i c l e " I r r e , " i n t h e
Allgemeine Encyklopadie der Wissenschaften, Ersch
and Gruber, p. 144): "An intellect is rarely so
happily organized as to be in full command of itselfat all times and seasons, and never to be disturbed

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 159in the lucid and constant processes of thought by
ideas not merely unessential, but absolutely
grotesque and nonsensical; indeed, the greatest
thinkers have had cause to complain of this dream-
like, tormenting and distressing rabble of ideas,
which disturbs their profoundest contemplations and
their most pious and earnest meditations."
A clearer light is thrown on the psychological
meaning of these contrasting thoughts by a furtherobservation of Hildebrandt's, to the effect that
dreams permit us an occasional glimpse of the
deepest and innermost recesses of our being, which
are generally closed to us in our waking state (p.
55). A recognition of this fact is betrayed by Kant in
his Anthropology, when he states that our dreams
may perhaps be intended to reveal to us not what
we are but what we might have been if we had had
another upbringing; and by Radestock (p. 84), who
suggests that dreams disclose to us what we do not
wish to admit to ourselves, and that we thereforeunjustly condemn them as lying and deceptive. J. E.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 160Erdmann asserts: "A dream has never told me what
I ought to think of a person, but, to my great
surprise, a dream has more than once taught me
what I do really think of him and feel about him."
And J. H. Fichte expresses himself in a like manner:
"The character of our dreams gives a far truer
reflection of our general disposition than anything
that we can learn by self-observation in the waking
state." Such remarks as this of Benini's call ourattention to the fact that the emergence of impulses
which are foreign to our ethical consciousness is
merely analogous to the manner, already familiar to
us, in which the dream disposes of other
representative material: "Certe nostre inclinazioni
che si credevano soffocate e spente da un pezzo, si
ridestano; passioni vecchie e sepolte revivono; cose
e persone a cui non pensiamo mai, ci vengono
dinanzi" (p. 149). Volkelt expresses himself in a
similar fashion: "Even ideas which have entered into
our consciousness almost unnoticed, and which,perhaps, it has never before called out of oblivion,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 161often announce their presence in the mind through a
dream" (p 105). Finally, we may remember that
according to Schleiermacher the state of falling
asleep is accompanied by the appearance of
undesired imaginings.
We may include in such "undesired
imaginings" the whole of that imaginative material
the occurrence of which surprises us in immoral as
well as in absurd dreams. The only importantdifference consists in the fact that the undesired
imaginings in the moral sphere are in opposition to
our usual feelings, whereas the others merely
appear strange to us. So far nothing has been done
to enable us to reconcile this difference by a
profounder understanding. But what is the
significance of the emergence of undesired
representations in dreams? What conclusions can
the psychology of the waking and dreaming mind
draw from these nocturnal manifestations of
contrasting ethical impulses? Here we find a freshdiversity of opinion, and also a different grouping of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 162the authors who have treated of the subject. The
line of thought followed by Hildebrandt, and by
others who share his fundamental opinion, cannot
be continued otherwise than by ascribing to the
immoral impulses, even in the waking state, a latent
vitality, which is indeed inhibited from proceeding to
action, and by asserting that during sleep something
falls away from us which, having the effect of an
inhibition, has kept us from becoming aware of theexistence of such impulses. Dreams therefore,
reveal the true, if not the whole, nature of the
dreamer, and are one means of making the hidden
life of the psyche accessible to our understanding. It
i s o n l y o n s u c h h y p o t h e s e s t h a t H i l d e b r a n d t c a n
attribute to the dream the role of a monitor who
calls our attention to the secret mischief in the soul,
just as, according to the physicians, it may
announce a hitherto unobserved physical disorder.
Spitta, too, must be influenced by this conception
when he refers, for example, to the stream ofexcitations which flow in upon the psyche during

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 163puberty, and consoles the dreamer by assuring him
that he has done all that is in his power to do if he
has led a strictly virtuous life during his waking
state, if he has made an effort to suppress the sinful
thoughts as often as they arise, and has kept them
from maturing and turning into action. According to
this conception, we might designate as "undesired
imaginings" those that are suppressed during the
day, and we must recognize in their emergence agenuine psychic phenomenon.
According to certain other authors, we have
no right to draw this last inference. For Jessen (p.
360) the undesired ideas and images, in the dream
as in the waking state, and also in the delirium of
fever, etc., possess "the character of a voluntary
activity laid to rest, and of a procession, to some
extent mechanical, of images and ideas evoked by
inner impulses." An immoral dream proves nothing
in respect of the psychic life of the dreamer except
that he has somehow become cognizant of theimaginative content in question; it is certainly no

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 164proof of a psychic impulse of his own mind. Another
writer, Maury, makes us wonder whether he, too,
does not ascribe to the dream-state the power of
dividing the psychic activity into its components,
instead of aimlessly destroying it. He speaks as
follows of dreams in which one oversteps the bounds
of morality: "Ce sont nos penchants qui parlent et
qui nous font agir, sans que la conscience nous
retienne, bien que parfois elle nous avertisse. J'aimes defauts et mes penchants vicieux; a l'etat de
veille, je tache de lutter contre eux, et il m'arrive
assez souvent de n'y pas succomber. Mais dans mes
songes j'y succombe toujours, ou pour mieux dire
j'agis par leur impulsion, sans crainte et sans
remords…. Evidemment les visions qui se deroulent
devant ma pensee, et qui constituent le reve, me
sont suggerees par les incitations que je ressens et
que ma volonte absente ne cherche pas a
refouler."[47] Le Sommeil (p. 113).
If one believed in the power of the dream to
reveal an actually existing, but suppressed or

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 165concealed, immoral disposition of the dreamer, one
could not express one's opinion more emphatically
than in the words of Maury (p. 115): "En reve
l'homme se revele donc tout entier a soi-meme dans
sa nudite et sa misere natives. Des qu'il suspend
l'exercise de sa volonte, il devient le jouet de toutes
les passions contre lesquelles, a l'etat de veille, la
conscience, le sentiment d'honneur, la crainte nous
defendent."[48] In another place makes the strikingassertion (p. 462): "Dans le reve, c'est surtout
l'homme instinctif que se revele…. L'homme revient
pour ainsi dire l'etat de nature quand il reve; mais
moins les idees acquises ont penetre dans son
esprit, plus 'les penchants en desaccord' avec elles
conservent encore sur lui d'influence dans le
rive."[49] He then mentions, as an example, that his
own dreams often reveal him as a victim of just
those superstitions which he has most vigorously
attacked in his writings.
The value of all these acute observations is,
however, impaired in Maury's case, because he

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 166refuses to recognize in the phenomena which he has
so accurately observed anything more than a proof
of the automatisme psychologique which in his own
opinion dominates the dream-life. He conceives this
automatism as the complete opposite of psychic
activity.
A passage in Stricker's Studien uber das
Bewusstsein reads: "Dreams do not consist purely
and simply of delusions; for example, if one is afraidof robbers in a dream, the robbers indeed are
imaginary, but the fear is real." Our attention is here
called to the fact that the affective development of a
dream does not admit of the judgment which one
bestows upon the rest of the dream-content, and
the problem then arises: What part of the psychic
processes in a dream may be real? That is to say,
what part of them may claim to be enrolled among
the psychic processes of the waking state?

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 167G. Dream-Theories and the Function of
the Dream
A statement concerning the dream which
seeks to explain as many as possible of its observed
characteristics from a single point of view, and
which at the same time defines the relation of the
dream to a more comprehensive sphere of
phenomena, may be described as a theory of the
dream. The individual theories of the dream will bedistinguished from one another by their designating
as essential this or that characteristic of dreams,
and relating thereto their data and their
explanations. It is not absolutely necessary that we
should deduce from the theory of the dream a
function, i.e., a use or any such similar role, but
expectation, being as a matter of habit teleologically
inclined, will nevertheless welcome those theories
which afford us some insight into a function of
dreams.
We have already become acquainted with
many conceptions of the dream, which in this sense

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 168are more or less deserving of the name of dream-
theories. The belief of the ancients that dreams were
sent by the gods in order to guide the actions of
man was a complete theory of the dream, which told
them all that was worth knowing about dreams.
Since dreams have become an object of biological
research we have a greater number of theories,
some of which, however, are very incomplete.
Provided we make no claim to completeness,
we might venture on the following rough grouping of
dream-theories, based on their fundamental
conception of the degree and mode of the psychic
activity in dreams:
1. Theories, like those of Delboeuf, which
allow the full psychic activity of the waking state to
continue in our dreams. Here the psyche does not
sleep; its apparatus remains intact; but under the
conditions of the sleeping state, which differ from
those of the waking state, it must in its normal
functioning give results which differ from those ofthe waking state. As regards these theories, it may

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 169be questioned whether their authors are in a
position to derive the distinction between dreaming
and waking thought entirely from the conditions of
the sleeping state. Moreover, they lack one possible
access to a function of dreams; one does not
understand to what purpose one dreams- why the
complicated mechanism of the psychic apparatus
should continue to operate even when it is placed
under conditions to which it does not appear to beadapted. There are only two purposeful reactions in
the place of the reaction of dreaming: to sleep
dreamlessly, or to wake when affected by disturbing
stimuli.
2. Theories which, on the contrary, assume
for the dream a diminution of the psychic activity, a
loosening of connections, and an impoverishment of
the available material. In accordance with these
theories, one must assume for sleep a psychological
character entirely different from that given by
Delboeuf. Sleep encroaches widely upon the psyche;it does not consist in the mere shutting it off from

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 170the outer world; on the contrary, it enters into its
mechanism, and makes it for the time being
unserviceable. If I may draw a comparison from
psychiatry, I would say that the first group of
theories construes the dream like a paranoia, while
the second represents it as a type of mental
deficiency or amentia.
The theory that only a fragment of the
psychic activity paralysed by sleep finds expressionin dreams is that by far the most favoured by
medical writers, and by scientists in general. In so
far as one may presuppose a general interest in
dream-interpretation, one may indeed describe it as
the most popular theory of dreams. It is remarkable
how nimbly this particular theory avoids the greatest
danger that threatens every dream-interpretation;
that is, shipwreck on one of the contrasts
incorporated in dreams. Since this theory regards
dreams as the result of a partial waking (or, as
Herbart puts it in his Psychologie uber den Traum,"a gradual, partial, and at the same time very

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 171anomalous waking"), it is able to cover the whole
series, from the inferior activities of dreams, which
betray themselves by their absurdity, to fully
concentrated intellectual activity, by a series of
states of progressive awakening, ending in complete
wakefulness.
Those who find the physiological mode of
expression indispensable, or who deem it more
scientific, will find this theory of dreams summarizedin Binz's description (p. 43):
"This state (of torpor), however, gradually
comes to an end in the hours of early morning. The
accumulated products of fatigue in the albumen of
the brain gradually diminish. They are slowly
decomposed, or carried away by the constantly
flowing blood-stream. Here and there individual
groups of cells can be distinguished as being awake,
while around them all is still in a state of torpidity.
The isolated work of the individual groups now
appears before our clouded consciousness, which isstill powerless to control other parts of the brain,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 172which govern the associations. Hence the pictures
created, which for the most part correspond to the
objective impressions of the immediate past,
combine with one another in a wild and uncontrolled
fashion. As the number of brain-cells set free
constantly increases, the irrationality of the dream
becomes constantly less."
The conception of the dream as an
incomplete, partial waking state, or traces of theinfluence of this conception, will of course be found
in the works of all the modern physiologists and
philosophers. It is most completely represented by
Maury. It often seems as though this author
conceives the state of being awake or asleep as
susceptible of shifting from one anatomical region to
another; each anatomical region seeming to him to
be connected with a definite psychic function. Here I
will merely suggest that even if the theory of partial
waking were confirmed, its finer superstructure
would still call for exhaustive consideration.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 173No function of dreams, of course, can
emerge from this conception of the dream-life. On
the contrary, Binz, one of the chief proponents of
this theory, consistently enough denies that dreams
have any status or importance. He says (p. 357):
"All the facts, as we see them, urge us to
characterize the dream as a physical process, in all
cases useless, and in many cases definitely morbid."
The expression physical in reference to
dreams (the word is emphasized by the author)
points, of course, in more than one direction. In the
first place, it refers to the aetiology of dreams,
which was of special interest to Binz, as he was
studying the experimental production of dreams by
the administration of drugs. It is certainly in keeping
with this kind of dream-theory to ascribe the
incitement to dreaming, whenever possible,
exclusively to somatic origins. Presented in the most
extreme form the theory is as follows: After we have
put ourselves to sleep by the banishment of stimuli,there would be no need to dream, and no reason for

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 174dreaming until the morning, when the gradual
awakening through the fresh invasion of stimuli
might be reflected in the phenomenon of dreaming.
But, as a matter of fact, it is not possible to protect
our sleep from stimuli; like the germs of life of which
Mephistopheles complained, stimuli come to the
sleeper from all directions- from without, from
within, and even from all those bodily regions which
never trouble us during the waking state. Thus oursleep is disturbed; now this, now that little corner of
the psyche is jogged into the waking state, and the
psyche functions for a while with the awakened
fraction, yet is thankful to fall asleep again. The
dream is the reaction to the disturbance of sleep
caused by the stimulus, but it is, when all is said, a
purely superfluous reaction.
The description of the dream- which, after
all, remains an activity of the psychic organ- as a
physical process has yet another connotation. So to
describe it is to deny that the dream has the dignityof a psychic process. The old simile of "the ten

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 175fingers of a person ignorant of music running over
the keyboard of an instrument" perhaps best
illustrates in what esteem the dream is commonly
held by the representatives of exact science. Thus
conceived, it becomes something wholly
insusceptible of interpretation. How could the ten
fingers of a player ignorant of music perform a
musical composition?
The theory of partial wakefulness did not
escape criticism even by the earlier writers. Thus
Burdach wrote in 1830: "If we say that dreaming is
a partial waking, then, in the first place, neither the
waking nor the sleeping state is explained thereby;
secondly, this amounts only to saying that certain
powers of the mind are active in dreams while
others are at rest. But such irregularities occur
throughout life…" (p. 482).
The prevailing dream-theory which
conceives the dream as a "physical" process finds a
certain support in a very interesting conception ofthe dream which was first propounded by Robert in

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 1761866, and which is seductive because it assigns to
the dream a function or a useful result. As the basis
of his theory Robert takes two objectively
observable facts which we have already discussed in
our consideration of dream-material (chapter I., B).
These facts are: (1) that one very often dreams
about the most insignificant impressions of the day;
and (2) that one rarely carries over into the dream
the absorbing interests of the day. Robert asserts asan indisputable fact that those matters which have
been fully settled and solved never evoke dreams,
but only such as lie incompleted in the mind, or
touch it merely in passing (p. 10). "For this reason
we cannot usually explain our dreams, since their
causes are to be found in sensory impressions of the
preceding day which have not attained sufficient
recognition on the part of the dreamer." The
condition permitting an impression to reach the
dream is, therefore, that this impression has been
disturbed in its elaboration, or that it was tooinsignificant to lay claim to such elaboration.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 177Robert therefore conceives the dream "as a
physical process of elimination which in its psychic
reaction reaches the consciousness." Dreams are
eliminations of thoughts nipped in the bud. "A man
deprived of the capacity for dreaming would in time
become mentally unbalanced, because an immense
number of unfinished and unsolved thoughts and
superficial impressions would accumulate in his
brain, under the pressure of which all that should beincorporated in the memory as a completed whole
would be stifled." The dream acts as a safety-valve
for the over-burdened brain. Dreams possess a
healing and unburdening power (p. 32).
We should misunderstand Robert if we were
to ask him how representation in the dream could
bring about an unburdening of the mind. The writer
apparently concluded from these two peculiarities of
the dream-material that during sleep such an
elimination of worthless impressions is effected
somehow as a somatic process; and that dreamingis not a special psychic process, but only the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 178information which we receive of such elimination.
Moreover, elimination is not the only thing that
takes place in the mind during sleep. Robert himself
adds that the stimuli of the day are likewise
elaborated, and "what cannot be eliminated from the
undigested thought-material lying in the mind is
bound up into a completed whole by mental clues
borrowed from the imagination, and is thus enrolled
in the memory as a harmless phantasy-picture" (p.23).
But it is in his criticism of the sources of
dreams that Robert is most flatly opposed to the
prevailing theory. Whereas according to this theory
there would be no dream if the external and internal
sensory stimuli did not repeatedly wake the mind,
according to Robert the impulse to dream lies in the
mind itself. It lies in the overloading of the mind,
which demands discharge, and Robert considers,
quite consistently, that those causes conditioning
the dream which depend on the physical conditionassume a subordinate rank, and could not incite

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 179dreams in a mind which contained no material for
dream-formation derived from the waking
consciousness. It is admitted, however, that the
phantasy-images originating in the depths of the
mind may be influenced by nervous stimuli (p. 48).
Thus, according to Robert, dreams are not, after all,
wholly dependent on the somatic element. Dreaming
is, of course, not a psychic process, and it has no
place among the psychic processes of the wakingstate; it is a nocturnal somatic process in the
apparatus of mental activity, and has a function to
perform, viz., to guard this apparatus against
excessive strain, or, if we may be allowed to change
the comparison, to cleanse the mind.
Another author, Yves Delage, bases his
theory on the same characteristics of the dream-
characteristics which are perceptible in the selection
of the dream-material, and it is instructive to
observe how a trifling twist in the conception of the
same things gives a final result entirely different inits bearings. Delage, having lost through death a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 180person very dear to him, found that we either do not
dream at all of what occupies us intently during the
day, or that we begin to dream of it only after it is
overshadowed by the other interests of the day. His
investigations in respect of other persons
corroborated the universality of this state of affairs.
Concerning the dreams of newly-married people, he
makes a comment which is admirable if it should
prove to be generally true: "S'ils ont ete fortementepris, presque jamais ils n'ont reve l'un de l'autre
avant le mariage ou pendant la lune de miel; et s'ils
ont reve d'amour c'est pour etre infideles avec
quelque personne indifferente ou odieuse."[50] But
of what does one dream? Delage recognizes that the
material of our dreams consists of fragments and
remnants of impressions, both from the last few
days and from earlier periods. All that appears in our
dreams, all that we may at first be inclined to
consider the creation of the dream-life, proves on
closer investigation to be unrecognized reproduction,"souvenir inconscient." But this representative

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 181material reveals one common characteristic; it
originates from impressions which have probably
affected our senses more forcibly than our mind, or
from which the attention has been deflected soon
after their occurrence. The less conscious, and at
the same time the stronger an impression, the
greater the prospect of its playing a part in our next
dream.
These two categories of impressions- the
insignificant and the undisposed-of- are essentially
the same as those which were emphasized by
Robert, but Delage gives them another significance,
inasmuch as he believes that these impressions are
capable of exciting dreams not because they are
indifferent, but because they are not disposed of.
The insignificant impressions also are, in a sense,
not fully disposed of; they, too, owing to their
character of new impressions, are "autant de
ressorts tendus,"[51] which will be relaxed during
sleep. Still more entitled to a role in the dream thana weak and almost unnoticed impression is a vivid

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 182impression which has been accidentally retarded in
its elaboration, or intentionally repressed. The
psychic energy accumulated during the day by
inhibition or suppression becomes the mainspring of
the dream at night. In dreams psychically
suppressed material achieves expression.[52]
Unfortunately Delage does not pursue this
line of thought any farther; he is able to ascribe only
the most insignificant role in our dreams to anindependent psychic activity, and thus, in his theory
of dreams, he reverts to the prevailing doctrine of a
partial slumber of the brain: "En somme le reve est
le produit de la pensee errante, sans but et sans
direction, se fixant successivement sur les
souvenirs, qui ont garde assez d'intensite pour se
placer sur sa route et l'arreter au passage,
etablissant entre eux un lien tantot faible et indecis,
tantot plus fort et plus serre, selon que l'activite
actuelle du cerveau est plus ou moins abolie par le
sommeil."[53]

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 1833. In a third group we may include those
dream-theories which ascribe to the dreaming mind
the capacity for and propensity to special psychic
activities, which in the waking state it is able to
exert either not at all or imperfectly. In most cases
the manifestation of these activities is held to result
in a useful function of dreams. The evaluations of
dreams by the earlier psychologists fall chiefly within
this category. I shall content myself, however, withquoting in their stead the assertion of Burdach, to
the effect that dreaming "is the natural activity of
the mind, which is not limited by the power of the
individuality, nor disturbed by self-consciousness,
nor directed by self-determination, but is the vitality
of the sensible focus indulging in free play" (p. 486).
Burdach and others evidently consider this
revelling in the free use of its own powers as a state
in which the mind refreshes itself and gathers fresh
strength for the day's work; something, indeed,
after the fashion of a vacation. Burdach thereforecites with approval the admirable words in which the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 184poet Novalis lauds the power of the dream: "The
dream is a bulwark against the regularity and
commonplace character of life, a free recreation of
the fettered phantasy, in which it intermingles all
the images of life and interrupts the constant
seriousness of the adult by the joyful play of the
child. Without the dream we should surely grow old
earlier, so that the dream may be considered, if not
precisely as a gift from above, yet as a delightfulexercise, a friendly companion on our pilgrimage to
the grave."
The refreshing and healing activity of
dreams is even more impressively described by
Purkinje (p. 456). "The productive dreams in
particular would perform these functions. These are
the unconstrained play of the imagination, and have
no connection with the events of the day. The mind
is loth to continue the tension of the waking life, but
wishes to relax it and recuperate from it. It creates,
in the first place conditions opposed to those of thewaking state. It cures sadness by joy, worry by hope

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 185and cheerfully distracting images, hatred by love
and friendliness, and fear by courage and
confidence; it appeases doubt by conviction and firm
belief, and vain expectation by realization. Sleep
heals many sore spots in the mind, which the day
keeps continually open, by covering them and
guarding them against fresh irritation. On this
depends in some degree the consoling action of
time." We all feel that sleep is beneficial to thepsychic life, and the vague surmise of the popular
consciousness is apparently loth to surrender the
notion that dreaming is one of the ways in which
sleep bestows its benefits.
The most original and most comprehensive
attempt to explain dreaming as a special activity of
the mind, which can freely unfold itself only in the
sleeping state, is that made by Scherner in 1861.
Scherner's book is written in a heavy and bombastic
style and is inspired by an almost intoxicated
enthusiasm for the subject, which is bound to repelus unless it can carry us away with it. It places so

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 186many difficulties in the way of an analysis that we
gladly resort to the clearer and conciser presentation
of Scherner's theories made by the philosopher
Volkelt: "From these mystical conglomerations, from
all these outbursts of splendour and radiance, there
indeed flashes and shines an ominous semblance of
meaning; but the path of the philosopher is not
illumined thereby." Such is the criticism of
Scherner's exposition by one of his own followers.
Scherner is not one of those writers for
whom the mind carries its undiminished faculties
into the dream-life. He even explains how, in our
dreams, the centrality and spontaneous energy of
the ego become enervated; how cognition, feeling,
will, and imagination are transformed by this
decentralization; how the remnant of these psychic
forces has not a truly intellectual character, but is
rather of the nature of a mechanism. But, on the
other hand, that activity of the psyche which may be
described as phantasy, freed from all rationalgovernance, and hence no longer strictly controlled,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 187rises to absolute supremacy in our dreams. To be
sure, it borrows all its building-material from the
memory of the waking state, but with this material it
builds up structures which differ from those of the
waking state as day differs from night. In our
dreams it reveals itself as not only reproductive but
also productive. Its peculiarities give the dream-life
its singular character. It shows a preference for the
unlimited, the exaggerated, the prodigious; but byits liberation from the inhibiting categories of
thought, it gains a greater flexibility and agility, and
indulges in pleasurable turns. It is excessively
sensitive to the delicate emotional stimuli of the
mind, to its stirring and disturbing affects, and it
rapidly recasts the inner life into an external, plastic
visibility. The dream-phantasy lacks the language of
concepts. What it wishes to say it must express in
visible form; and since in this case the concept does
not exert an inhibitory control, it depicts it in all the
fulness, power, and breadth of visible form. Buthereby its language, plain though it is, becomes

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 188cumbersome, awkward, and prolix. Plain speaking is
rendered especially difficult by the fact that it
dislikes expressing an object by its actual image, but
prefers to select an alien image, if only the latter is
able to express that particular aspect of the object
which it is anxious to represent. Such is the
symbolizing activity of the phantasy…. It is,
moreover, very significant that the dream-phantasy
reproduces objects not in detail, but only in outline,and in the freest possible manner. Its paintings,
therefore, are like light and brilliant sketches. The
dream-phantasy, however, does not stop at the
mere representation of the object, but feels an
internal urge to implicate the dream-ego to some
extent with the object, and thus to give rise to
action. The visual dream, for example, depicts gold
coins lying in the street; the dreamer picks them up,
rejoices, and carries them away.
According to Scherner, the material upon
which the dream-phantasy exerts its artistic activityconsists preponderantly of the organic sensory

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 189stimuli which are so obscure during the day (cf. p.
151 above); hence it is that the over-fantastic
theory of Scherner, and perhaps too matter-of-fact
theories of Wundt and other physiologists, though
otherwise diametrically opposed to each other, are
in perfect agreement in their assumptions with
regard to dream-sources and dream-stimuli. But
whereas, according to the physiological theory, the
psychic reaction to the inner physical stimulibecomes exhausted with the arousing of any of the
ideas appropriate to these stimuli (as these ideas
then, by way of association, call to their aid other
ideas, so that on reaching this stage the chain of
psychic processes appears to terminate), according
to Scherner, on the other hand, the physical stimuli
merely supply the psyche with material which it may
utilize in fulfilling its phantastic intentions. For
Scherner dream-formation begins where, according
to the views of other writers, it comes to an end.
What the dream-phantasy does with the
physical stimuli cannot, of course, be regarded as

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 190purposeful. The phantasy plays a tantalizing game
with them, and represents the organic source of the
stimuli of the dream in question by any sort of
plastic symbolism. Indeed, Scherner holds- though
here Volkelt and others differ from him- that the
dream-phantasy has a certain favourite symbol for
the organism as a whole: namely, the house.
Fortunately, however, for its representations, it does
not seem to limit itself to this material; it may alsoemploy a whole series of houses to designate a
single organ; for example, very long streets of
houses for the intestinal stimulus. In other dreams
particular parts of the house may actually represent
particular regions of the body, as in the headache-
dream, when the ceiling of the room (which the
dream sees covered with disgusting toad-like
spiders) represents the head.
Quite apart from the symbol of the house,
any other suitable object may be employed to
represent those parts of the body which excite thedream. "Thus the breathing lungs find their symbol

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 191in the flaming stove with its windy roaring, the heart
in hollow chests and baskets, the bladder in round,
ball-shaped, or simply hollow objects. The man's
dreams, when due to the sexual stimulus, make the
dreamer find in the street the upper portion of a
clarinet, or the mouthpiece of a tobacco-pipe, or,
again, a piece of fur. The clarinet and tobacco-pipe
represent the approximate form of the male sexual
organ, while the fur represents the pubic hair. In thesexual dreams of the female, the tightness of the
closed thighs may be symbolized by a narrow
courtyard surrounded by houses, and the vagina by
a very narrow, slippery and soft footpath, leading
through the courtyard, upon which the dreamer is
obliged to walk, in order perhaps to carry a letter to
a man" (Volkelt, p. 39). It is particularly noteworthy
that at the end of such a physically stimulated
dream the phantasy, as it were, unmasks itself by
representing the exciting organ or its function
unconcealed. Thus the "tooth-excited dream" usually

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 192ends with the dreamer taking a tooth out of his
mouth.
The dream-phantasy may, however, direct
its attention not merely to the form of the exciting
organ, but may even make the substance contained
therein the object of symbolization. Thus, for
example, the dream excited by the intestinal stimuli
may lead us through muddy streets, the dream due
to stimuli from the bladder to foaming water. Or thestimulus as such, the nature of its excitation, and
the object which it covets, are represented
symbolically. Or, again, the dream-ego enters into a
concrete association with the symbolization of its
own state; as, for example, when in the case of
painful stimuli we struggle desperately with vicious
dogs or raging bulls, or when in a sexual dream the
dreamer sees herself pursued by a naked man.
Disregarding all the possible prolixity of elaboration,
a phantastic symbolizing activity remains as the
central force of every dream. Volkelt, in his fine andenthusiastic essay, attempted to penetrate still

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 193further into the character of this phantasy, and to
assign to the psychic activity thus recognized its
position in a system of philosophical ideas, which,
however, remains altogether too difficult of
comprehension for anyone who is not prepared by
previous training for the intuitive comprehension of
philosophical modes of thought.
Scherner attributes no useful function to the
activity of the symbolizing phantasy in dreams. Indreams the psyche plays with the stimuli which are
offered to it. One might conjecture that it plays in a
mischievous fashion. And we might be asked
whether our detailed consideration of Scherner's
dream-theory, the arbitrariness of which, and its
deviation from the rules of all forms of research are
only too obvious, can lead to any useful results. We
might fitly reply that to reject Scherner's theory
without previous examination would be imposing too
arrogant a veto. This theory is based on the
impressions produced by his dreams on a man whopaid close attention to them, and who would appear

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 194to be personally very well equipped for tracing
obscure psychic phenomena. Furthermore, it treats
of a subject which (though rich in its contents and
relations) has for thousands of years appeared
mysterious to humanity, and to the elucidation of
which science, strictly so called, has, as it confesses,
contributed nothing beyond attempting- in
uncompromising opposition to popular sentiment- to
deny its content and significance. Finally, let usfrankly admit that it seems as though we cannot
very well avoid the phantastical in our attempts to
explain dreams. We must remember also that there
is such a thing as a phantasy of ganglion cells; the
passage cited (p. 87) from a sober and exact
investigator like Binz, which describes how the dawn
of awakening floods the dormant cell-masses of the
cerebral cortex, is not a whit less fanciful and
improbable than Scherner's attempts at
interpretation. I hope to be able to demonstrate that
there is something real underlying these attempts,though the phenomena which he describes have

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 195been only vaguely recognized, and do not possess
the character of universality that should entitle them
to be the basis of a theory of dreams. For the
present, Scherner's theory of dreams, in contrast to
the medical theory, may perhaps lead us to realize
between what extremes the explanation of dream-
life is still unsteadily vacillating.
H. The Relation between Dreams and
Mental Diseases
When we speak of the relation of dreams to
mental derangement, we may mean three different
things: (1) aetiological and clinical relations, as
when a dream represents or initiates a psychotic
condition, or occurs subsequently to such a
condition; (2) changes which the dream-life
undergoes in cases of mental disease; (3) inner
relations between dreams and psychoses, analogies
which point to an intimate relationship. These
manifold relations between the two series of
phenomena were in the early days of medicalscience- and are once more at the present time- a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 196favourite theme of medical writers, as we may learn
from the literature on the subject collated by Spitta,
Radestock, Maury, and Tissie. Recently Sante de
Sanctis has directed his attention to this
relationship.[54] For the purposes of our discussion
it will suffice merely to glance at this important
subject.
As to the clinical and aetiological relations
between dreams and the psychoses, I will report thefollowing observations as examples: Hohnbaum
asserts (see Krauss) that the first attack of insanity
is frequently connected with a terrifying anxiety-
dream, and that the predominating idea is related to
this dream. Sante de Sanctis adduces similar
observations in respect of paranoiacs, and declares
the dream to be, in some of them, "la vraie cause
determinante de la folie."[55] The psychosis may
come to life quite suddenly, simultaneously with the
dream that contains its effective and delusive
explanation, or it may develop slowly throughsubsequent dreams that have still to struggle

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 197against doubt. In one of de Sanctis's cases an
intensively moving dream was accompanied by
slight hysterical attacks, which, in their turn, were
followed by an anxious melancholic state. Fere (cited
by Tissie) refers to a dream which was followed by
hysterical paralysis. Here the dream is presented as
the aetiology of mental derangement, although we
should be making a statement equally consistent
with the facts were we to say that the firstmanifestation of the mental derangement occurred
in the dream-life, that the disorder first broke
through in the dream. In other instances, the
morbid symptoms are included in the dream-life, or
the psychosis remains confined to the dream-life.
Thus Thomayer calls our attention to anxiety-
dreams which must be conceived as the equivalent
of epileptic attacks. Allison has described cases of
nocturnal insanity (see Radestock), in which the
subjects are apparently perfectly well in the day-
time, while hallucinations, fits of frenzy, and the likeregularly make their appearance at night. De Sanctis

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 198and Tissie record similar observations (the
equivalent of a paranoic dream in an alcoholic,
voices accusing a wife of infidelity). Tissie records
many observations of recent date in which behaviour
of a pathological character (based on delusory
hypotheses, obsessive impulses) had their origin in
dreams. Guislain describes a case in which sleep was
replaced by an intermittent insanity.
We cannot doubt that one day the physician
will concern himself not only with the psychology,
but also with the psycho-pathology of dreams.
In cases of convalescence from insanity, it is
often especially obvious that while the functions may
be healthy by day the dream-life may still partake of
the psychosis. Gregory is said to have been the first
to call attention to such cases (see Krauss). Macario
(cited by Tissie) gives an account of a maniac who,
a week after his complete recovery, once more
experienced in dreams the flux of ideas and the
unbridled impulses of his disease.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 199Concerning the changes which the dream-
life undergoes in chronic psychotics, little research
has been undertaken as yet. On the other hand,
early attention was given to the inner relationship
between dreams and mental disturbances, a
relationship which is demonstrated by the complete
agreement of the manifestations occurring in each.
According to Maury, Cabanis, in his Rapports du
Physique et du Moral, was the first to call attentionto this relationship; he was followed by Lelut, J.
Moreau, and more particularly the philosopher Maine
de Biran. The comparison between the two is of
course older still. Radestock begins the chapter in
which he deals with the subject by citing a number
of opinions which insist on the analogy between
insanity and dreaming. Kant says somewhere: "The
lunatic is a dreamer in the waking state." According
to Krauss, "Insanity is a dream in which the senses
are awake." Schopenhauer terms the dream a brief
insanity, and insanity a long dream. Hagen describesdelirium as a dream-life which is inducted not by

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 200sleep but by disease. Wundt, in his Physiologische
Psychologie, declares: "As a matter of fact we
ourselves may in dreams experience almost all the
manifestations which we observe in the asylums for
the insane."
The specific points of agreement in
consequence of which such a comparison commends
itself to our judgment are enumerated by Spitta,
who groups them (very much as Maury has done) asfollows: "(1) Suspension, or at least retardation of
self-consciousness, and consequently ignorance of
the condition as such, the impossibility of
astonishment, and a lack of moral consciousness.
(2) Modified perception of the sensory organs; that
is, perception is as a rule diminished in dreams, and
greatly enhanced in insanity. (3) Mutual combination
of ideas exclusively in accordance with the laws of
association and reproduction, hence automatic
series-formations: hence again a lack of proportion
in the relations between ideas (exaggerations,phantasms); and the results of all this: (4) Changes

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 201in- for example, inversions of- the personality, and
sometimes of the idiosyncrasies of the character
(perversities)."
Radestock adds a few additional data
concerning the analogous nature of the material of
dreams and of mental derangement: "The greatest
number of hallucinations and illusions are found in
the sphere of the senses of sight and hearing and
general sensation. As in dreams, the fewestelements are supplied by the senses of smell and
taste. The fever-patient, like the dreamer, is
assailed by reminiscences from the remote past;
what the waking and healthy man seems to have
forgotten is recollected in sleep and in disease." The
analogy between dreams and the psychoses receives
its full value only when, like a family resemblance, it
is extended to the subtler points of mimicry, and
even the individual peculiarities of facial expression.
"To him who is tortured by physical and
mental sufferings the dream accords what has beendenied him by reality, to wit, physical well-being,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 202and happiness; so, too, the insane see radiant
images of happiness, eminence, and wealth. The
supposed possession of estates and the imaginary
fulfilment of wishes, the denial or destruction of
which have actually been a psychic cause of the
insanity, often form the main content of the
delirium. The woman who has lost a dearly beloved
child experiences in her delirium the joys of
maternity; the man who has suffered reverses offortune deems himself immensely wealthy; and the
jilted girl sees herself tenderly beloved."
(This passage from Radestock is an abstract
of a brilliant exposition of Griesinger's (p. 111),
which reveals, with the greatest clarity, wish-
fulfilment as a characteristic of the imagination
common to dreams and to the psychoses. My own
investigations have taught me that here is to be
found the key to a psychological theory of dreams
and of the psychoses.)
"Absurd combinations of ideas and weakness
of judgment are the main characteristics of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 203dream and of insanity." The over-estimation of one's
own mental capacity, which appears absurd to sober
judgment, is found alike in both, and the rapid flux
of imaginings in the dream corresponds to the flux
of ideas in the psychoses. Both are devoid of any
measure of time. The splitting of the personality in
dreams, which, for instance, distributes one's own
knowledge between two persons, one of whom, the
strange person, corrects one's own ego in thedream, entirely corresponds with the well-known
splitting of the personality in hallucinatory paranoia;
the dreamer, too, hears his own thoughts expressed
by strange voices. Even the constant delusive ideas
find their analogy in the stereotyped and recurring
pathological dream (reve obsedant). After
recovering from delirium, patients not infrequently
declare that the whole period of their illness
appeared to them like an uncomfortable dream;
indeed, they inform us that sometimes during their
illness they have suspected that they were onlydreaming, just as often happens in the sleep-dream.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 204In view of all this, it is not surprising that
Radestock should summarize his own opinion, and
that of many others, in the following words:
"Insanity, an abnormal morbid phenomenon, is to be
regarded as an enhancement of the periodically
recurring normal dream-state" (p. 228).
Krauss attempted to base the relationship
between the dream and insanity upon their aetiology
(or rather upon the sources of excitation), thus,perhaps, making the relationship even more
intimate than was possible on the basis of the
analogous nature of the phenomena manifested.
According to him, the fundamental element common
to both is, as we have already learned, the
organically conditioned sensation, the sensation of
physical stimuli, the general sensation arising out of
contributions from all the organs (cf. Peisse, cited by
Maury, p. 52).
The undeniable agreement between dreams
and mental derangement, extending even tocharacteristic details, constitutes one of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 205strongest confirmations of the medical theory of
dream-life, according to which the dream is
represented as a useless and disturbing process,
and as the expression of a diminished psychic
activity. One cannot expect, for the present, to
derive the final explanation of the dream from the
psychic derangements, since, as is well known, our
understanding of the origin of the latter is still highly
unsatisfactory. It is very probable, however, that amodified conception of the dream must also
influence our views regarding the inner mechanism
of mental disorders, and hence we may say that we
are working towards the explanation of the
psychoses when we endeavour to elucidate the
mystery of dreams.
ADDENDUM 1909
I shall have to justify myself for not
extending my summary of the literature of dream-
problems to cover the period between the firstappearance of this book and the publication of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 206second edition. This justification may not seem very
satisfactory to the reader; none the less, to me it
was decisive. The motives which induced me to
summarize the treatment of dreams in the literature
of the subject have been exhausted by the foregoing
introduction; to have continued this would have cost
me a great deal of effort and would not have been
particularly useful or instructive. For the interval in
question- a period of nine years- has yielded nothingnew or valuable as regards the conception of
dreams, either in actual material or in novel points
of view. In most of the literature which has
appeared since the publication of my own work the
latter has not been mentioned or discussed; it has,
of course, received the least attention from the so-
called "research-workers on dreams," who have thus
afforded a brilliant example of the aversion to
learning anything new so characteristic of the
scientist. "Les savants ne sont pas curieux,"[56] said
the scoffer Anatole France. If there were such athing in science as the right of revenge, I in my turn

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 207should be justified in ignoring the literature which
has appeared since the publication of this book. The
few reviews which have appeared in the scientific
journals are so full of misconceptions and lack of
comprehension that my only possible answer to my
critics would be a request that they should read this
book over again- or perhaps merely that they should
read it!
In the works of those physicians who make
use of the psycho-analytic method of treatment a
great many dreams have been recorded and
interpreted in accordance with my directions. In so
far as these works go beyond the confirmation of my
own assertions, I have noted their results in the
context of my exposition. A supplementary
bibliography at the end of this volume comprises the
most important of these new publications. The
comprehensive work on the dream by Sante de
Sanctis, of which a German translation appeared
soon after its publication, was producedsimultaneously with my own, so that I could not

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 208review his results, nor could he comment upon
mine. I am sorry to have to express the opinion that
this laborious work is exceedingly poor in ideas, so
poor that one could never divine from it the
possibility of the problems which I have treated in
these pages.
I can think of only two publications which
touch on my own treatment of the dream-problems.
A young philosopher, H. Swoboda, who has venturedto extend W. Fliess's discovery of biological
periodicity (in series of twenty-three and twenty-
eight days) to the psychic field, has produced an
imaginative essay,[57] in which, among other
things, he has used this key to solve the riddle of
dreams. Such a solution, however, would be an
inadequate estimate of the significance of dreams.
The material content of dreams would be explained
by the coincidence of all those memories which, on
the night of the dream, complete one of these
biological periods for the first or the nth time. Apersonal communication of the author's led me to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 209assume that he himself no longer took this theory
very seriously. But it seems that I was mistaken in
this conclusion: I shall record in another place some
observations made with reference to Swoboda's
thesis, which did not, however, yield convincing
results. It gave me far greater pleasure to find by
chance, in an unexpected quarter, a conception of
the dream which is in complete agreement with the
essence of my own. The relevant dates preclude thepossibility that this conception was influenced by
reading my book: I must therefore hail this as the
only demonstrable concurrence with the essentials
of my theory of dreams to be found in the literature
of the subject. The book which contains the passage
that I have in mind was published (in its second
edition) in 1910, by Lynkeus, under the title
Phantasien eines Realisten.
ADDENDUM 1914
The above apologia was written in 1909.
Since then, the state of affairs has certainly

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 210undergone a change; my contribution to the
"interpretation of dreams" is no longer ignored in
the literature of the subject. But the new situation
makes it even more impossible to continue the
foregoing summary. The Interpretation of Dreams
has evoked a whole series of new contentions and
problems, which have been expounded by the
authors in the most varied fashions. But I cannot
discuss these works until I have developed thetheories to which their authors have referred.
Whatever has appeared to me as valuable in this
recent literature I have accordingly reviewed in the
course of the following exposition.
Footnotes
23Silberer has shown by excellent examples
how in the state of falling asleep even abstract
thoughts may be changed into visible plastic images,
which, of course, express them. (Jahrbuch, Bleuler-
Freud, vol. i, 1900.) I shall return to the discussionof his findings later on.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 21124Haffner, like Delboeuf, has attempted to
explain the act of dreaming by the alteration which
an abnormally introduced condition must have upon
the otherwise correct functioning of the intact
psychic apparatus; but he describes this condition in
somewhat different terms. He states that the first
distinguishing mark of dreams is the abolition of
time and space, i.e., the emancipation of the
representation from the individual's position in thespatial and temporal order. Associated with this is
the second fundamental character of dreams, the
mistaking of the hallucinations, imaginations, and
phantasy-combinations for objective perceptions.
"The sum-total of the higher psychic functions,
particularly the formation of concepts, judgments,
and conclusions on the one hand, and free self-
determination on the other hand, combine with the
sensory phantasy-images, and at all times have
these as a substratum. These activities too,
therefore, participate in the erratic nature of thedream-representations. We say they participate, for

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 212our faculties of judgment and will are in themselves
unaltered during sleep. As far as their activity is
concerned, we are just as shrewd and just as free as
in the waking state. A man cannot violate the laws
of thought; that is, even in a dream he cannot judge
things to be identical which present themselves to
him as opposites. He can desire in a dream only that
which he regards as a good (sub ratione boni). But
in this application of the laws of thought and will thehuman intellect is led astray in dreams by confusing
one notion with another. Thus it happens that in
dreams we formulate and commit the greatest of
contradictions, while, on the other hand, we display
the shrewdest judgment and arrive at the most
logical conclusions, and are able to make the most
virtuous and sacred resolutions. The lack of
orientation is the whole secret of our flights of
phantasy in dreams, and the lack of critical
reflection and agreement with other minds is the
main source of the reckless extravagances of ourjudgments, hopes and wishes in dreams" (p. 18).

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 21325Compare with this the element of
"Desinteret," in which Claparede (1905) finds the
mechanism of falling asleep.
26There are no dreams which are absolutely
reasonable which do not contain some incoherence,
some absurdity.
27The dream is psychic anarchy, emotional
and intellectual, the playing of functions, freed of
themselves and performing without control andwithout end; in the dream, the mind is a spiritual
automaton.
28There is no imaginable thing too absurd,
too involved, or too abnormal for us to dream about.
29The production of those images which, in
the waking man, most often excite the will,
correspond, for the mind, to those which are, for the
motility, certain movements that offer St. Vitus'
dance and paralytic affections…
30A whole series of degradations of the
faculty of thinking and reasoning.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 21431An action of the mind spontaneous and as
though automatic; (2) a defective and irregular
association of ideas.
32Later on we shall be able to understand the
meaning of dreams like these which are full of words
with similar sounds or the same initial letters.
33The dream is neither pure derangement
nor pure irrationality.
34In sleep, excepting perception, all the
faculties of the mind intellect, imagination, memory,
will, morality- remain intact in their essence; only,
they are applied to imaginary and variable objects.
The dreamer is an actor who plays at will the mad
and the wise, executioner and victim, dwarf and
giant, devil and angel.
35Hervey de St. Denys.
36The Marquis Hervey attributes to the
intelligence during sleep all its freedom of action and
attention, and he seems to make sleep consist only
of the shutting of the senses, of their closing to theoutside world; except for his manner of seeing, the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 215man asleep is hardly distinguishable from the man
who allows his mind to wander while he obstructs
his senses; the whole difference, then, between
ordinary thought and that of the sleeper, is that with
the latter the idea takes an objective and visible
shape, which resembles, to all appearances,
sensation determined by exterior objects; memory
takes on the appearance of present fact.
37That there is a further and important
difference in that the mental faculties of the sleeping
man do not offer the equilibrium which they keep in
the waking state.
38The image in a dream is a copy of an idea.
The main thing is the idea; the vision is only
accessory. This established, it is necessary to know
how to follow the progression of ideas, how to
analyse the texture of the dreams; incoherence then
is understandable, the most fantastic concepts
become simple and perfectly logical facts.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 21639Even the most bizarre dreams find a most
logical explanation when one knows how to analyse
them.
40Cf. Haffner and Spitta.
41That brilliant mystic, Du Prel, one of the
few writers for the omission of whose name in
earlier editions of this book I should like to
apologize, has said that, so far as the human mind
is concerned, it is not the waking state but dreamswhich are the gateway to metaphysics (Philosophie
der Mystik, p. 59).
42For the further literature of the subject,
and a critical discussion of these problems, the
reader is referred to Tobowolska's dissertation
(Paris, 1900).
43Compare Havelock Ellis's criticism in The
World of Dreams, p. 268.
44Grundzuge des Systems der Anthropologie.
Erlangen, 1850 (quoted by Spitta).
45Das Traumleben und seine Deutung, 1868
(cited by Spitta, p. 192).

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 21746It is not uninteresting to consider the
attitude of the Inquisition to this problem. In the
Tractatus de Officio sanctissimae Inquisitionis of
Thomas Carena (Lyons edit., 1659) one finds the
following passage: "Should anyone utter heresies in
his dreams, the inquisitors shall consider this a
reason for investigating his conduct in life, for that is
wont to return in sleep which occupies a man during
the day" (Dr. Ehniger, St. Urban, Switzerland).
47Our tendencies speak and make us act,
without being restrained by our conscience, although
it sometimes warns us. I have my faults and vicious
tendencies; awake I try to fight against them, and
often enough I do not succumb to them. But in my
dreams I always succumb, or, rather, I act at their
direction, without fear or remorse…. Evidently, the
visions which unfold in my thoughts, and which
constitute the dream, are suggested by the stimuli
which I feel and which my absent will does not try to
repel.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 21848In a dream, a man is totally revealed to
himself in his naked and wretched state. As he
suspends the exercise of his will, he becomes the
toy of all the passions from which, when awake, our
conscience, horror, and fear defend us.
49In a dream, it is above all the instinctive
man who is revealed…. Man returns, so to speak, to
the natural state when he dreams; but the less
acquired ideas have penetrated into his mind, themore his "tendencies to disagreement" with them
keep their hold on him in his dreams.
50If they are very much in love, they have
almost never dreamed of each other before the
marriage or during the honeymoon; and if they have
dreamed of love, it was to be unfaithful with
someone unimportant or distasteful.
51So many taut lines.
52A novelist, Anatole France, expresses
himself to a similar effect (Le Lys Rouge): "Ce que
nous voyons la nuit ce sont les restes malheureuxque nous avons neglige dans la veille. Le reve est

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 219souvent la revanche des choses qu'on meprise ou le
reproche des etres abandonnes." [What we see at
night are the unhappy relics that we neglected while
awake. The dream is often the revenge of things
scorned or the reproach of beings deserted.]
53In short, the dream is the product of
wandering thought, without end or direction,
successively fixing on memories which have retained
sufficient intensity to put themselves in the way andblock the passage, establishing between themselves
a connection sometimes weak and loose, sometimes
stronger and closer, according to whether the actual
work of the brain is more or less suppressed by
sleep.
54Among the more recent authors who have
occupied themselves with these relations are: Fere,
Ideler, Lasegue, Pichon, Regis Vespa, Giessler,
Kazodowsky, Pachantoni, and others.
55The real determining cause of the
madness.
56The learned are not inquisitive.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 22057H. Swoboda, Die Perioden des
Menschlichen Organismus, 1904.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 221CHAPTER 2
THE METHOD OF DREAM INTERPRETATION
The Analysis of a Specimen Dream
The epigraph on the title-page of this
volume indicates the tradition to which I prefer to
ally myself in my conception of the dream. I amproposing to show that dreams are capable of
interpretation; and any contributions to the solution
of the problems which have already been discussed
will emerge only as possible by-products in the
accomplishment of my special task. On the
hypothesis that dreams are susceptible of
interpretation, I at once find myself in disagreement
with the prevailing doctrine of dreams- in fact, with
all the theories of dreams, excepting only that of
Scherner, for to interpret a dream is to specify its
meaning, to replace it by something which takes itsposition in the concatenation of our psychic activities
as a link of definite importance and value. But, as
we have seen, the scientific theories of the dream
leave no room for a problem of dream-

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 222interpretation; since, in the first place, according to
these theories, dreaming is not a psychic activity at
all, but a somatic process which makes itself known
to the psychic apparatus by means of symbols. Lay
opinion has always been opposed to these theories.
It asserts its privilege of proceeding illogically, and
although it admits that dreams are incomprehensible
and absurd, it cannot summon up the courage to
deny that dreams have any significance. Led by adim intuition, it seems rather to assume that dreams
have a meaning, albeit a hidden one; that they are
intended as a substitute for some other thought-
process, and that we have only to disclose this
substitute correctly in order to discover the hidden
meaning of the dream.
The unscientific world, therefore, has always
endeavoured to interpret dreams, and by applying
one or the other of two essentially different
methods. The first of these methods envisages the
dream-content as a whole, and seeks to replace itby another content, which is intelligible and in

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 223certain respects analogous. This is symbolic dream-
interpretation; and of course it goes to pieces at the
very outset in the case of those dreams which are
not only unintelligible but confused. The construction
which the biblical Joseph placed upon the dream of
Pharaoh furnishes an example of this method. The
seven fat kine, after which came seven lean ones
that devoured the former, were a symbolic
substitute for seven years of famine in the land ofEgypt, which according to the prediction were to
consume all the surplus that seven fruitful years had
produced. Most of the artificial dreams contrived by
the poets[1] are intended for some such symbolic
interpretation, for they reproduce the thought
conceived by the poet in a guise not unlike the
disguise which we are wont to find in our dreams.
The idea that the dream concerns itself
chiefly with the future, whose form it surmises in
advance- a relic of the prophetic significance with
which dreams were once invested- now becomes themotive for translating into the future the meaning of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 224the dream which has been found by means of
symbolic interpretation.
A demonstration of the manner in which one
arrives at such a symbolic interpretation cannot, of
course, be given. Success remains a matter of
ingenious conjecture, of direct intuition, and for this
reason dream-interpretation has naturally been
elevated into an art which seems to depend upon
extraordinary gifts.[2] The second of the twopopular methods of dream- interpretation entirely
abandons such claims. It might be described as the
cipher method, since it treats the dream as a kind of
secret code in which every sign is translated into
another sign of known meaning, according to an
established key. For example, I have dreamt of a
letter, and also of a funeral or the like; I consult a
"dream-book," and I find that "letter" is to be
translated by "vexation" and "funeral" by
"engagement." It now remains to establish a
connection, which I am again to assume aspertaining to the future, by means of the rigmarole

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 225which I have deciphered. An interesting variant of
this cipher procedure, a variant in which its
character of purely mechanical transference is to a
certain extent corrected, is presented in the work on
dream-interpretation by Artemidoros of Daldis.[3]
Here not only the dream-content, but also the
personality and social position of the dreamer are
taken into consideration, so that the same dream-
content has a significance for the rich man, themarried man, or the orator, which is different from
that which applies to the poor man, the bachelor, or,
let us say, the merchant. The essential point, then,
in this procedure is that the work of interpretation is
not applied to the entirety of the dream, but to each
portion of the dream-content severally, as though
the dream were a conglomerate in which each
fragment calls for special treatment. Incoherent and
confused dreams are certainly those that have been
responsible for the invention of the cipher
method.[4]

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 226

The worthlessness of both these popular
methods of interpretation does not admit of
discussion. As regards the scientific treatment of the
subject, the symbolic method is limited in its
application, and is not susceptible of a general
exposition. In the cipher method everything depends
upon whether the key, the dream-book, is reliable,and for that all guarantees are lacking. So that one
might be tempted to grant the contention of the
philosophers and psychiatrists, and to dismiss the
problem of dream-interpretation as altogether
fanciful.[5]

I have, however, come to think differently. I
have been forced to perceive that here, once more,
we have one of those not infrequent cases where an
ancient and stubbornly retained popular belief
seems to have come nearer to the truth of thematter than the opinion of modern science. I must

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 227insist that the dream actually does possess a
meaning, and that a scientific method of dream-
interpretation is possible. I arrived at my knowledge
of this method in the following manner:
For years I have been occupied with the
resolution of certain psycho-pathological structures-
hysterical phobias, obsessional ideas, and the like-
with therapeutic intentions. I have been so occupied,
in fact, ever since I heard the significant statementof Joseph Breuer, to the effect that in these
structures, regarded as morbid symptoms, solution
and treatment go hand in hand.[6] Where it has
been possible to trace a pathological idea back to
those elements in the psychic life of the patient to
which it owed its origin, this idea has crumbled
away, and the patient has been relieved of it. In
view of the failure of our other therapeutic efforts,
and in the face of the mysterious character of these
pathological conditions, it seemed to me tempting,
in spite of all the difficulties, to follow the methodinitiated by Breuer until a complete elucidation of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 228the subject had been achieved. I shall have occasion
elsewhere to give a detailed account of the form
which the technique of this procedure has finally
assumed, and of the results of my efforts. In the
course of these psycho-analytic studies, I happened
upon the question of dream-interpretation. My
patients, after I had pledged them to inform me of
all the ideas and thoughts which occurred to them in
connection with a given theme, related theirdreams, and thus taught me that a dream may be
interpolated in the psychic concatenation, which
may be followed backwards from a pathological idea
into the patient's memory. The next step was to
treat the dream itself as a symptom, and to apply to
it the method of interpretation which had been
worked out for such symptoms.
For this a certain psychic preparation on the
part of the patient is necessary. A twofold effort is
made, to stimulate his attentiveness in respect of his
psychic perceptions, and to eliminate the criticalspirit in which he is ordinarily in the habit of viewing

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 229such thoughts as come to the surface. For the
purpose of self-observation with concentrated
attention it is advantageous that the patient should
take up a restful position and close his eyes; he
must be explicitly instructed to renounce all criticism
of the thought-formations which he may perceive.
He must also be told that the success of the psycho-
analysis depends upon his noting and
communicating everything that passes through hismind, and that he must not allow himself to
suppress one idea because it seems to him
unimportant or irrelevant to the subject, or another
because it seems nonsensical. He must preserve an
absolute impartiality in respect to his ideas; for if he
is unsuccessful in finding the desired solution of the
dream, the obsessional idea, or the like, it will be
because he permits himself to be critical of them.
I have noticed in the course of my psycho-
analytical work that the psychological state of a man
in an attitude of reflection is entirely different fromthat of a man who is observing his psychic

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 230processes. In reflection there is a greater play of
psychic activity than in the most attentive self-
observation; this is shown even by the tense
attitude and the wrinkled brow of the man in a state
of reflection, as opposed to the mimic tranquillity of
the man observing himself. In both cases there must
be concentrated attention, but the reflective man
makes use of his critical faculties, with the result
that he rejects some of the thoughts which rise intoconsciousness after he has become aware of them,
and abruptly interrupts others, so that he does not
follow the lines of thought which they would
otherwise open up for him; while in respect of yet
other thoughts he is able to behave in such a
manner that they do not become conscious at all-
that is to say, they are suppressed before they are
perceived. In self-observation, on the other hand, he
has but one task- that of suppressing criticism; if he
succeeds in doing this, an unlimited number of
thoughts enter his consciousness which wouldotherwise have eluded his grasp. With the aid of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 231material thus obtained- material which is new to the
self-observer- it is possible to achieve the
interpretation of pathological ideas, and also that of
dream-formations. As will be seen, the point is to
induce a psychic state which is in some degree
analogous, as regards the distribution of psychic
energy (mobile attention), to the state of the mind
before falling asleep- and also, of course, to the
hypnotic state. On falling asleep the undesired ideasemerge, owing to the slackening of a certain
arbitrary (and, of course, also critical) action, which
is allowed to influence the trend of our ideas; we are
accustomed to speak of fatigue as the reason of this
slackening; the emerging undesired ideas are
changed into visual and auditory images. In the
condition which it utilized for the analysis of dreams
and pathological ideas, this activity is purposely and
deliberately renounced, and the psychic energy thus
saved (or some part of it) is employed in attentively
tracking the undesired thoughts which now come tothe surface- thoughts which retain their identity as

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 232ideas (in which the condition differs from the state
of falling asleep). Undesired ideas are thus changed
into desired ones.
There are many people who do not seem to
find it easy to adopt the required attitude toward the
apparently "freely rising" ideas, and to renounce the
criticism which is otherwise applied to them. The
"undesired ideas" habitually evoke the most violent
resistance, which seeks to prevent them fromcoming to the surface. But if we may credit our
great poet-philosopher Friedrich Schiller, the
essential condition of poetical creation includes a
very similar attitude. In a certain passage in his
correspondence with Korner (for the tracing of which
we are indebted to Otto Rank), Schiller replies in the
following words to a friend who complains of his lack
of creative power: "The reason for your complaint
lies, it seems to me, in the constraint which your
intellect imposes upon your imagination. Here I will
make an observation, and illustrate it by an allegory.Apparently it is not good- and indeed it hinders the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 233creative work of the mind- if the intellect examines
too closely the ideas already pouring in, as it were,
at the gates. Regarded in isolation, an idea may be
quite insignificant, and venturesome in the extreme,
but it may acquire importance from an idea which
follows it; perhaps, in a certain collocation with
other ideas, which may seem equally absurd, it may
be capable of furnishing a very serviceable link. The
intellect cannot judge all these ideas unless it canretain them until it has considered them in
connection with these other ideas. In the case of a
creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has
withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the
ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review
and inspect the multitude. You worthy critics, or
whatever you may call yourselves, are ashamed or
afraid of the momentary and passing madness which
is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter
duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist
from the dreamer. Hence your complaints ofunfruitfulness, for you reject too soon and

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 234discriminate too severely" (letter of December 1,
1788).
And yet, such a withdrawal of the watchers
from the gates of the intellect, as Schiller puts it,
such a translation into the condition of uncritical
self-observation, is by no means difficult.
Most of my patients accomplish it after my
first instructions. I myself can do so very
completely, if I assist the process by writing downthe ideas that flash through my mind. The quantum
of psychic energy by which the critical activity is
thus reduced, and by which the intensity of self-
observation may be increased, varies considerably
according to the subject-matter upon which the
attention is to be fixed.
The first step in the application of this
procedure teaches us that one cannot make the
dream as a whole the object of one's attention, but
only the individual components of its content. If I
ask a patient who is as yet unpractised: "Whatoccurs to you in connection with this dream?" he is

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 235unable, as a rule, to fix upon anything in his psychic
field of vision. I must first dissect the dream for him;
then, in connection with each fragment, he gives me
a number of ideas which may be described as the
thoughts behind this part of the dream. In this first
and important condition, then, the method of
dream-interpretation which I employ diverges from
the popular, historical and legendary method of
interpretation by symbolism and approaches morenearly to the second or cipher method. Like this, it is
an interpretation in detail, not en masse; like this, it
conceives the dream, from the outset, as something
built up, as a conglomerate of psychic formations.
In the course of my psycho-analysis of
neurotics I have already subjected perhaps more
than a thousand dreams to interpretation, but I do
not wish to use this material now as an introduction
to the theory and technique of dream-interpretation.
For quite apart from the fact that I should lay myself
open to the objection that these are the dreams ofneuropaths, so that the conclusions drawn from

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 236them would not apply to the dreams of healthy
persons, there is another reason that impels me to
reject them. The theme to which these dreams point
is, of course, always the history of the malady that
is responsible for the neurosis. Hence every dream
would require a very long introduction, and an
investigation of the nature and aetiological
conditions of the psychoneuroses, matters which are
in themselves novel and exceedingly strange, andwhich would therefore distract attention from the
dream- problem proper. My purpose is rather to
prepare the way, by the solution of the dream-
problem, for the solution of the more difficult
problems of the psychology of the neuroses. But if I
eliminate the dreams of neurotics, which constitute
my principal material, I cannot be too fastidious in
my treatment of the rest. Only those dreams are left
which have been incidentally related to me by
healthy persons of my acquaintance, or which I find
given as examples in the literature of dream-life.Unfortunately, in all these dreams I am deprived of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 237the analysis without which I cannot find the meaning
of the dream. My mode of procedure is, of course,
less easy than that of the popular cipher method,
which translates the given dream-content by
reference to an established key; I, on the contrary,
hold that the same dream-content may conceal a
different meaning in the case of different persons, or
in different connections. I must, therefore, resort to
my own dreams as a source of abundant andconvenient material, furnished by a person who is
more or less normal, and containing references to
many incidents of everyday life. I shall certainly be
confronted with doubts as to the trustworthiness of
these self- analyses and it will be said that
arbitrariness is by no means excluded in such
analyses. In my own judgment, conditions are more
likely to be favourable in self-observation than in the
observation of others; in any case, it is permissible
to investigate how much can be accomplished in the
matter of dream- interpretation by means of self-analysis. There are other difficulties which must be

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 238overcome in my own inner self. One has a
comprehensible aversion to exposing so many
intimate details of one's own psychic life, and one
does not feel secure against the misinterpretations
of strangers. But one must be able to transcend
such considerations. "Tout psychologiste," writes
Delboeuf, "est oblige de faire l'aveu meme de ses
faiblesses s'il croit par la jeter du jour sur quelque
probleme obscur."[7] And I may assume for thereader that his initial interest in the indiscretions
which I must commit will very soon give way to an
exclusive engrossment in the psychological problems
elucidated by them.'[8]
I shall therefore select one of my own
dreams for the purpose of elucidating my method of
interpretation. Every such dream necessitates a
preliminary statement; so that I must now beg the
reader to make my interests his own for a time, and
to become absorbed, with me, in the most trifling
details of my life; for an interest in the hidden

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 239significance of dreams imperatively demands just
such a transference.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 240Preliminary Statement
In the summer of 1895 I had treated
psycho-analytically a young lady who was anintimate friend of mine and of my family. It will be
understood that such complicated relations may
excite manifold feelings in the physician, and
especially the psychotherapist. The personal interest
of the physician is greater, but his authority less. If
he fails, his friendship with the patient's relatives is
in danger of being undermined. In this case,
however, the treatment ended in partial success;
the patient was cured of her hysterical anxiety, but
not of all her somatic symptoms. At that time I was
not yet quite sure of the criteria which denote thefinal cure of an hysterical case, and I expected her
to accept a solution which did not seem acceptable
to her. In the midst of this disagreement, we
discontinued the treatment for the summer holidays.
One day a younger colleague, one of my most
intimate friends, who had visited the patient- Irma-
and her family in their country residence, called

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 241upon me. I asked him how Irma was, and received
the reply: "She is better, but not quite well." I
realize that these words of my friend Otto's, or the
tone of voice in which they were spoken, annoyed
me. I thought I heard a reproach in the words,
perhaps to the effect that I had promised the patient
too much, and- rightly or wrongly- I attributed
Otto's apparent taking sides against me to the
influence of the patient's relatives, who, I assumed,had never approved of my treatment. This
disagreeable impression, however, did not become
clear to me, nor did I speak of it. That same evening
I wrote the clinical history of Irma's case, in order to
give it, as though to justify myself, to Dr. M, a
mutual friend, who was at that time the leading
personality in our circle. During the night (or rather
in the early morning) I had the following dream,
which I recorded immediately after waking.[9]
Dream of July 23-24, 1895
A great hall- a number of guests, whom we
are receiving- among them Irma, whom I

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 242immediately take aside, as though to answer her
letter, and to reproach her for not yet accepting the
"solution." I say to her: "If you still have pains, it is
really only your own fault."- She answers: "If you
only knew what pains I have now in the throat,
stomach, and abdomen- I am choked by them." I
am startled, and look at her. She looks pale and
puffy. I think that after all I must be overlooking
some organic affection. I take her to the window andlook into her throat. She offers some resistance to
this, like a woman who has a set of false teeth. I
think, surely, she doesn't need them.- The mouth
then opens wide, and I find a large white spot on the
right, and elsewhere I see extensive grayish-white
scabs adhering to curiously curled formations, which
are evidently shaped like the turbinal bones of the
nose.- I quickly call Dr. M, who repeats the
examination and confirms it…. Dr. M looks quite
unlike his usual self; he is very pale, he limps, and
his chin is clean-shaven…. Now my friend Otto, too,is standing beside her, and my friend Leopold

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 243percusses her covered chest, and says "She has a
dullness below, on the left," and also calls attention
to an infiltrated portion of skin on the left shoulder
(which I can feel, in spite of the dress)…. M says:
"There's no doubt that it's an infection, but it doesn't
matter; dysentery will follow and the poison will be
eliminated." … We know, too, precisely how the
infection originated. My friend Otto, not long ago,
gave her, when she was feeling unwell, an injectionof a preparation of propyl… propyls… propionic
acid… trimethylamin (the formula of which I see
before me, printed in heavy type)…. One doesn't
give such injections so rashly…. Probably, too, the
syringe was not clean.
This dream has an advantage over many
others. It is at once obvious to what events of the
preceding day it is related, and of what subject it
treats. The preliminary statement explains these
matters. The news of Irma's health which I had
received from Otto, and the clinical history, which Iwas writing late into the night, had occupied my

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 244psychic activities even during sleep. Nevertheless,
no one who had read the preliminary report, and
had knowledge of the content of the dream, could
guess what the dream signified. Nor do I myself
know. I am puzzled by the morbid symptoms of
which Irma complains in the dream, for they are not
the symptoms for which I treated her. I smile at the
nonsensical idea of an injection of propionic acid,
and at Dr. M's attempt at consolation. Towards theend the dream seems more obscure and quicker in
tempo than at the beginning. In order to learn the
significance of all these details I resolve to
undertake an exhaustive analysis.
Analysis
The hall- a number of guests, whom we are
receiving. We were living that summer at Bellevue,
an isolated house on one of the hills adjoining theKahlenberg. This house was originally built as a
place of entertainment, and therefore has unusually
lofty, hall-like rooms. The dream was dreamed in
Bellevue, a few days before my wife's birthday.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 245During the day my wife had mentioned that she
expected several friends, and among them Irma, to
come to us as guests for her birthday. My dream,
then, anticipates this situation: It is my wife's
birthday, and we are receiving a number of people,
among them Irma, as guests in the large hall of
Bellevue.
I reproach Irma for not having accepted the
"solution." I say, "If you still have pains, it is reallyyour own fault." I might even have said this while
awake; I may have actually said it. At that time I
was of the opinion (recognized later to be incorrect)
that my task was limited to informing patients of the
hidden meaning of their symptoms. Whether they
then accepted or did not accept the solution upon
which success depended- for that I was not
responsible. I am grateful to this error, which,
fortunately, has now been overcome, since it made
life easier for me at a time when, with all my
unavoidable ignorance, I was expected to effectsuccessful cures. But I note that, in the speech

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 246which I make to Irma in the dream, I am above all
anxious that I shall not be blamed for the pains
which she still suffers. If it is Irma's own fault, it
cannot be mine. Should the purpose of the dream be
looked for in this quarter?
Irma's complaints- pains in the neck,
abdomen, and stomach; she is choked by them.
Pains in the stomach belonged to the symptom-
complex of my patient, but they were not veryprominent; she complained rather of qualms and a
feeling of nausea. Pains in the neck and abdomen
and constriction of the throat played hardly any part
in her case. I wonder why I have decided upon this
choice of symptoms in the dream; for the moment I
cannot discover the reason.
She looks pale and puffy. My patient had
always a rosy complexion. I suspect that here
another person is being substituted for her.
I am startled at the idea that I may have
overlooked some organic affection. This, as thereader will readily believe, is a constant fear with

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 247the specialist who sees neurotics almost exclusively,
and who is accustomed to ascribe to hysteria so
many manifestations which other physicians treat as
organic. On the other hand, I am haunted by a faint
doubt- I do not know whence it comes- whether my
alarm is altogether honest. If Irma's pains are
indeed of organic origin, it is not my duty to cure
them. My treatment, of course, removes only
hysterical pains. It seems to me, in fact, that I wishto find an error in the diagnosis; for then I could not
be reproached with failure to effect a cure.
I take her to the window in order to look into
her throat. She resists a little, like a woman who has
false teeth. I think to myself, she does not need
them. I had never had occasion to inspect Irma's
oral cavity. The incident in the dream reminds me of
an examination, made some time before, of a
governess who at first produced an impression of
youthful beauty, but who, upon opening her mouth,
took certain measures to conceal her denture. Othermemories of medical examinations, and of petty

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 248secrets revealed by them, to the embarrassment of
both physician and patient, associate themselves
with this case.- "She surely does not need them," is
perhaps in the first place a compliment to Irma; but
I suspect yet another meaning. In a careful analysis
one is able to feel whether or not the arriere-
pensees which are to be expected have all been
exhausted. The way in which Irma stands at the
window suddenly reminds me of another experience.Irma has an intimate woman friend of whom I think
very highly. One evening, on paying her a visit, I
found her at the window in the position reproduced
in the dream, and her physician, the same Dr. M,
declared that she had a diphtheritic membrane. The
person of Dr. M and the membrane return, indeed,
in the course of the dream. Now it occurs to me that
during the past few months I have had every reason
to suppose that this lady too is hysterical. Yes, Irma
herself betrayed the fact to me. But what do I know
of her condition? Only the one thing, that like Irmain the dream she suffers from hysterical choking.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 249Thus, in the dream I have replaced my patient by
her friend. Now I remember that I have often played
with the supposition that this lady, too, might ask
me to relieve her of her symptoms. But even at the
time I thought it improbable, since she is extremely
reserved. She resists, as the dream shows. Another
explanation might be that she does not need it; in
fact, until now she has shown herself strong enough
to master her condition without outside help. Nowonly a few features remain, which I can assign
neither to Irma nor to her friend; pale, puffy, false
teeth. The false teeth led me to the governess; I
now feel inclined to be satisfied with bad teeth. Here
another person, to whom these features may allude,
occurs to me. She is not my patient, and I do not
wish her to be my patient, for I have noticed that
she is not at her ease with me, and I do not consider
her a docile patient. She is generally pale, and once,
when she had not felt particularly well, she was
puffy.[10] I have thus compared my patient Irmawith two others, who would likewise resist

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 250treatment. What is the meaning of the fact that I
have exchanged her for her friend in the dream?
Perhaps that I wish to exchange her; either her
friend arouses in me stronger sympathies, or I have
a higher regard for her intelligence. For I consider
Irma foolish because she does not accept my
solution. The other woman would be more sensible,
and would thus be more likely to yield. The mouth
then opens readily; she would tell more thanIrma.[11]
What I see in the throat: a white spot and
scabby turbinal bones. The white spot recalls
diphtheria, and thus Irma's friend, but it also recalls
the grave illness of my eldest daughter two years
earlier, and all the anxiety of that unhappy time.
The scab on the turbinal bones reminds me of my
anxiety concerning my own health. At that time I
frequently used cocaine in order to suppress
distressing swellings in the nose, and I had heard a
few days previously that a lady patient who didlikewise had contracted an extensive necrosis of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 251nasal mucous membrane. In 1885 it was I who had
recommended the use of cocaine, and I had been
gravely reproached in consequence. A dear friend,
who had died before the date of this dream, had
hastened his end by the misuse of this remedy.
I quickly call Dr. M, who repeats the
examination. This would simply correspond to the
position which M occupied among us. But the word
quickly is striking enough to demand a specialexamination. It reminds me of a sad medical
experience. By continually prescribing a drug
(sulphonal), which at that time was still considered
harmless, I was once responsible for a condition of
acute poisoning in the case of a woman patient, and
hastily turned for assistance to my older and more
experienced colleague. The fact that I really had this
case in mind is confirmed by a subsidiary
circumstance. The patient, who succumbed to the
toxic effects of the drug, bore the same name as my
eldest daughter. I had never thought of this untilnow; but now it seems to me almost like a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 252retribution of fate- as though the substitution of
persons had to be continued in another sense: this
Matilda for that Matilda; an eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth. It is as though I were seeking every
opportunity to reproach myself for a lack of medical
conscientiousness.
Dr. M is pale; his chin is shaven, and he
limps. Of this so much is correct, that his unhealthy
appearance often arouses the concern of his friends.The other two characteristics must belong to another
person. An elder brother living abroad occurs to me,
for he, too, shaves his chin, and if I remember him
rightly, the M of the dream bears on the whole a
certain resemblance to him. And some days
previously the news arrived that he was limping on
account of an arthritic affection of the hip. There
must be some reason why I fuse the two persons
into one in my dream. I remember that, in fact, I
was on bad terms with both of them for similar
reasons. Both had rejected a certain proposal whichI had recently made them.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 253My friend Otto is now standing next to the
patient, and my friend Leopold examines her and
calls attention to a dulness low down on the left
side. My friend Leopold also is a physician, and a
relative of Otto's. Since the two practice the same
specialty, fate has made them competitors, so that
they are constantly being compared with one
another. Both of them assisted me for years, while I
was still directing a public clinic for neurotic children.There, scenes like that reproduced in my dream had
often taken place. While I would be discussing the
diagnosis of a case with Otto, Leopold would
examine the child anew and make an unexpected
contribution towards our decision. There was a
difference of character between the two men like
that between Inspector Brasig and his friend Karl.
Otto was remarkably prompt and alert; Leopold was
slow and thoughtful, but thorough. If I contrast Otto
and the cautious Leopold in the dream I do so,
apparently, in order to extol Leopold. Thecomparison is like that made above between the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 254disobedient patient Irma and her friend, who was
believed to be more sensible. I now become aware
of one of the tracks along which the association of
ideas in the dream proceeds: from the sick child to
the children's clinic. Concerning the dulness low on
the left side, I have the impression that it
corresponds with a certain case of which all the
details were similar, a case in which Leopold
impressed me by his thoroughness. I thoughtvaguely, too, of something like a metastatic
affection, but it might also be a reference to the
patient whom I should have liked to have in Irma's
place. For this lady, as far as I can gather, exhibited
symptoms which imitated tuberculosis.
An infiltrated portion of skin on the left
shoulder. I know at once that this is my own
rheumatism of the shoulder, which I always feel if I
lie awake long at night. The very phrasing of the
dream sounds ambiguous: Something which I can
feel, as he does, in spite of the dress. "Feel on myown body" is intended. Further, it occurs to me how

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 255unusual the phrase infiltrated portion of skin sounds.
We are accustomed to the phrase: "an infiltration of
the upper posterior left"; this would refer to the
lungs, and thus, once more, to tuberculosis.
In spite of the dress. This, to be sure, is only
an interpolation. At the clinic the children were, of
course, examined undressed; here we have some
contrast to the manner in which adult female
patients have to be examined. The story used to betold of an eminent physician that he always
examined his patients through their clothes. The rest
is obscure to me; I have, frankly, no inclination to
follow the matter further.
Dr. M says: "It's an infection, but it doesn't
matter; dysentery will follow, and the poison will be
eliminated." This, at first, seems to me ridiculous;
nevertheless, like everything else, it must be
carefully analysed; more closely observed it seems
after all to have a sort of meaning. What I had found
in the patient was a local diphtheritis. I rememberthe discussion about diphtheritis and diphtheria at

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 256the time of my daughter's illness. Diphtheria is the
general infection which proceeds from local
diphtheritis. Leopold demonstrates the existence of
such a general infection by the dulness, which also
suggests a metastatic focus. I believe, however, that
just this kind of metastasis does not occur in the
case of diphtheria. It reminds me rather of pyaemia.
It doesn't matter is a consolation. I believe it
fits in as follows: The last part of the dream hasyielded a content to the effect that the patient's
sufferings are the result of a serious organic
affection. I begin to suspect that by this I am only
trying to shift the blame from myself. Psychic
treatment cannot be held responsible for the
continued presence of a diphtheritic affection. Now,
indeed, I am distressed by the thought of having
invented such a serious illness for Irma, for the sole
purpose of exculpating myself. It seems so cruel.
Accordingly, I need the assurance that the outcome
will be benign, and it seems to me that I made agood choice when I put the words that consoled me

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 257into the mouth of Dr. M. But here I am placing
myself in a position of superiority to the dream; a
fact which needs explanation.
But why is this consolation so nonsensical?
Dysentery. Some sort of far-fetched
theoretical notion that the toxins of disease might be
eliminated through the intestines. Am I thereby
trying to make fun of Dr. M's remarkable store of
far- fetched explanations, his habit of conceivingcurious pathological relations? Dysentery suggests
something else. A few months ago I had in my care
a young man who was suffering from remarkable
intestinal troubles; a case which had been treated
by other colleagues as one of "anaemia with
malnutrition." I realized that it was a case of
hysteria; I was unwilling to use my psycho-therapy
on him, and sent him off on a sea-voyage. Now a
few days previously I had received a despairing
letter from him; he wrote from Egypt, saying that he
had had a fresh attack, which the doctor haddeclared to be dysentery. I suspect that the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 258diagnosis is merely an error on the part of an
ignorant colleague, who is allowing himself to be
fooled by the hysteria; yet I cannot help reproaching
myself for putting the invalid in a position where he
might contract some organic affection of the bowels
in addition to his hysteria. Furthermore, dysentery
sounds not unlike diphtheria, a word which does not
occur in the dream.
Yes, it must be the case that with the
consoling prognosis, Dysentery will develop, etc., I
am making fun of Dr. M, for I recollect that years
ago he once jestingly told a very similar story of a
colleague. He had been called in to consult with him
in the case of a woman who was very seriously ill,
and he felt obliged to confront his colleague, who
seemed very hopeful, with the fact that he found
albumen in the patient's urine. His colleague,
however, did not allow this to worry him, but
answered calmly: "That does not matter, my dear
sir; the albumen will soon be excreted!" Thus I canno longer doubt that this part of the dream

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 259expresses derision for those of my colleagues who
are ignorant of hysteria. And, as though in
confirmation, the thought enters my mind: "Does
Dr. M know that the appearances in Irma's friend,
his patient, which gave him reason to fear
tuberculosis, are likewise due to hysteria? Has he
recognized this hysteria, or has he allowed himself
to be fooled?"
But what can be my motive in treating this
friend so badly? That is simple enough: Dr. M agrees
with my solution as little as does Irma herself. Thus,
in this dream I have already revenged myself on two
persons: on Irma in the words, If you still have
pains, it is your own fault, and on Dr. M in the
wording of the nonsensical consolation which has
been put into his mouth.
We know precisely how the infection
originated. This precise knowledge in the dream is
remarkable. Only a moment before this we did not
yet know of the infection, since it was firstdemonstrated by Leopold.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 260My friend Otto gave her an injection not long
ago, when she was feeling unwell. Otto had actually
related during his short visit to Irma's family that he
had been called in to a neighbouring hotel in order
to give an injection to someone who had been
suddenly taken ill. Injections remind me once more
of the unfortunate friend who poisoned himself with
cocaine. I had recommended the remedy for internal
use only during the withdrawal of morphia; but heimmediately gave himself injections of cocaine.
With a preparation of propyl… propyls…
propionic acid. How on earth did this occur to me?
On the evening of the day after I had written the
clinical history and dreamed about the case, my wife
opened a bottle of liqueur labelled "Ananas,"[12]
which was a present from our friend Otto. He had,
as a matter of fact, a habit of making presents on
every possible occasion; I hope he will some day be
cured of this by a wife.[13] This liqueur smelt so
strongly of fusel oil that I refused to drink it. My wifesuggested: "We will give the bottle to the servants,"

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 261and I, more prudent, objected, with the
philanthropic remark: "They shan't be poisoned
either." The smell of fusel oil (amyl…) has now
apparently awakened my memory of the whole
series: propyl, methyl, etc., which furnished the
preparation of propyl mentioned in the dream. Here,
indeed, I have effected a substitution: I dreamt of
propyl after smelling amyl; but substitutions of this
kind are perhaps permissible, especially in organicchemistry. –
Trimethylamin. In the dream I see the
chemical formula of this substance- which at all
events is evidence of a great effort on the part of my
memory- and the formula is even printed in heavy
type, as though to distinguish it from the context as
something of particular importance. And where does
trimethylamin, thus forced on my attention, lead
me? To a conversation with another friend, who for
years has been familiar with all my germinating
ideas, and I with his. At that time he had justinformed me of certain ideas concerning a sexual

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 262chemistry, and had mentioned, among others, that
he thought he had found in trimethylamin one of the
products of sexual metabolism. This substance thus
leads me to sexuality, the factor to which I attribute
the greatest significance in respect of the origin of
these nervous affections which I am trying to cure.
My patient Irma is a young widow; if I am required
to excuse my failure to cure her, I shall perhaps do
best to refer to this condition, which her admirerswould be glad to terminate. But in what a singular
fashion such a dream is fitted together! The friend
who in my dream becomes my patient in Irma's
place is likewise a young widow.
I surmise why it is that the formula of
trimethylamin is so insistent in the dream. So many
important things are centered about this one word:
trimethylamin is an allusion, not merely to the all-
important factor of sexuality, but also to a friend
whose sympathy I remember with satisfaction
whenever I feel isolated in my opinions. And thisfriend, who plays such a large part in my life: will he

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 263not appear yet again in the concatenation of ideas
peculiar to this dream? Of course; he has a special
knowledge of the results of affections of the nose
and the sinuses, and has revealed to science several
highly remarkable relations between the turbinal
bones and the female sexual organs. (The three
curly formations in Irma's throat.) I got him to
examine Irma, in order to determine whether her
gastric pains were of nasal origin. But he himselfsuffers from suppurative rhinitis, which gives me
concern, and to this perhaps there is an allusion in
pyaemia, which hovers before me in the metastasis
of the dream.
One doesn't give such injections so rashly.
Here the reproach of rashness is hurled directly at
my friend Otto. I believe I had some such thought in
the afternoon, when he seemed to indicate, by word
and look, that he had taken sides against me. It
was, perhaps: "How easily he is influenced; how
irresponsibly he pronounces judgment." Further, theabove sentence points once more to my deceased

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 264friend, who so irresponsibly resorted to cocaine
injections. As I have said, I had not intended that
injections of the drug should be taken. I note that in
reproaching Otto I once more touch upon the story
of the unfortunate Matilda, which was the pretext for
the same reproach against me. Here, obviously, I
am collecting examples of my conscientiousness,
and also of the reverse.
Probably too the syringe was not clean.
Another reproach directed at Otto, but originating
elsewhere. On the previous day I happened to meet
the son of an old lady of eighty-two, to whom I am
obliged to give two injections of morphia daily. At
present she is in the country, and I have heard that
she is suffering from phlebitis. I immediately
thought that this might be a case of infiltration
caused by a dirty syringe. It is my pride that in two
years I have not given her a single infiltration; I am
always careful, of course, to see that the syringe is
perfectly clean. For I am conscientious. From thephlebitis I return to my wife, who once suffered from

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 265thrombosis during a period of pregnancy, and now
three related situations come to the surface in my
memory, involving my wife, Irma, and the dead
Matilda, whose identity has apparently justified my
putting these three persons in one another's places.
I have now completed the interpretation of
the dream.[14] In the course of this interpretation I
have taken great pains to avoid all those notions
which must have been suggested by a comparison ofthe dream-content with the dream-thoughts hidden
behind this content. Meanwhile the meaning of the
dream has dawned upon me. I have noted an
intention which is realized through the dream, and
which must have been my motive in dreaming. The
dream fulfills several wishes, which were awakened
within me by the events of the previous evening
(Otto's news, and the writing of the clinical history).
For the result of the dream is that it is not I who am
to blame for the pain which Irma is still suffering,
but that Otto is to blame for it. Now Otto hasannoyed me by his remark about Irma's imperfect

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 266cure; the dream avenges me upon him, in that it
turns the reproach upon himself. The dream acquits
me of responsibility for Irma's condition, as it refers
this condition to other causes (which do, indeed,
furnish quite a number of explanations). The dream
represents a certain state of affairs, such as I might
wish to exist; the content of the dream is thus the
fulfilment of a wish; its motive is a wish.
This much is apparent at first sight. But
many other details of the dream become intelligible
when regarded from the standpoint of wish-
fulfilment. I take my revenge on Otto, not merely for
too readily taking sides against me. in that I accuse
him of careless medical treatment (the injection),
but I revenge myself also for the bad liqueur which
smells of fusel oil, and I find an expression in the
dream which unites both these reproaches: the
injection of a preparation of propyl. Still I am not
satisfied, but continue to avenge myself by
comparing him with his more reliable colleague.Thereby I seem to say: "I like him better than you."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 267But Otto is not the only person who must be made
to feel the weight of my anger. I take my revenge
on the disobedient patient, by exchanging her for a
more sensible and more docile one. Nor do I pass
over Dr. M's contradiction; for I express, in an
obvious allusion, my opinion of him: namely, that
h i s a t t i t u d e i n t h i s c a s e i s t h a t o f a n i g n o r a m u s
(Dysentery will develop, etc.). Indeed, it seems as
though I were appealing from him to someonebetter informed (my friend, who told me about
trimethylamin), just as I have turned from Irma to
her friend, and from Otto to Leopold. It is as though
I were to say: Rid me of these three persons,
replace them by three others of my own choice, and
I shall be rid of the reproaches which I am not
willing to admit that I deserve! In my dream the
unreasonableness of these reproaches is
demonstrated for me in the most elaborate manner.
Irma's pains are not attributable to me, since she
herself is to blame for them, in that she refuses toaccept my solution. They do not concern me, for

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 268being as they are of an organic nature, they cannot
possibly be cured by psychic treatment. Irma's
sufferings are satisfactorily explained by her
widowhood (trimethylamin!); a state which I cannot
alter. Irma's illness has been caused by an
incautious injection administered by Otto, an
injection of an unsuitable drug, such as I should
never have administered. Irma's complaint is the
result of an injection made with an unclean syringe,like the phlebitis of my old lady patient, whereas my
injections have never caused any ill effects. I am
aware that these explanations of Irma's illness,
which unite in acquitting me, do not agree with one
another; that they even exclude one another. The
whole plea- for this dream is nothing else- recalls
vividly the defence offered by a man who was
accused by his neighbour of having returned a kettle
in a damaged condition. In the first place, he had
returned the kettle undamaged; in the second place
it already had holes in it when he borrowed it; andin the third place, he had never borrowed it at all. A

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 269complicated defence, but so much the better; if only
one of these three lines of defence is recognized as
valid, the man must be acquitted.
Still other themes play a part in the dream,
and their relation to my non-responsibility for Irma's
illness is not so apparent: my daughter's illness, and
that of a patient with the same name; the
harmfulness of cocaine; the affection of my patient,
who was traveling in Egypt; concern about thehealth of my wife; my brother, and Dr. M; my own
physical troubles, and anxiety concerning my absent
friend, who is suffering from suppurative rhinitis. But
if I keep all these things in view, they combine into
a single train of thought, which might be labelled:
Concern for the health of myself and others;
professional conscientiousness. I recall a vaguely
disagreeable feeling when Otto gave me the news of
Irma's condition. Lastly, I am inclined, after the
event, to find an expression of this fleeting
sensation in the train of thoughts which forms partof the dream. It is as though Otto had said to me:

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 270"You do not take your medical duties seriously
enough; you are not conscientious; you do not
perform what you promise." Thereupon this train of
thought placed itself at my service, in order that I
might give proof of my extreme conscientiousness,
of my intimate concern about the health of my
relatives, friends and patients. Curiously enough,
there are also some painful memories in this
material, which confirm the blame attached to Ottorather than my own exculpation. The material is
apparently impartial, but the connection between
this broader material, on which the dream is based,
and the more limited theme from which emerges the
wish to be innocent of Irma's illness, is,
nevertheless, unmistakable.
I do not wish to assert that I have entirely
revealed the meaning of the dream, or that my
interpretation is flawless.
I could still spend much time upon it; I could
draw further explanations from it, and discussfurther problems which it seems to propound. I can

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 271even perceive the points from which further mental
associations might be traced; but such
considerations as are always involved in every
dream of one's own prevent me from interpreting it
farther. Those who are overready to condemn such
reserve should make the experiment of trying to be
more straightforward. For the present I am content
with the one fresh discovery which has just been
made: If the method of dream- interpretation hereindicated is followed, it will be found that dreams do
really possess a meaning, and are by no means the
expression of a disintegrated cerebral activity, as
the writers on the subject would have us believe.
When the work of interpretation has been completed
the dream can be recognized as a wish fulfilment.
Footnotes
[1] In a novel Gradiva, by the poet W.
Jensen, I chanced to discover several fictitious
dreams, which were perfectly correct in theirconstruction, and could be interpreted as though

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 272they had not been invented, but had been dreamt
by actual persons. The poet declared, upon my
inquiry, that he was unacquainted with my theory of
dreams. I have made use of this agreement between
my investigations and the creations of the poet as a
proof of the correctness of my method of dream-
analysis (Der Wahn und die Traume in W. Jenson's
Gradiva, vol. i of the Schriften zur angewandten
Seelenkunde, 1906, edited by myself, Ges.Schriften, vol. ix).
[2] Aristotle expressed himself in this
connection by saying that the best interpreter of
dreams is he who can best grasp similarities. For
dream-pictures, like pictures in water, are disfigured
by the motion (of the water), so that he hits the
target best who is able to recognize the true picture
in the distorted one (Buchsenschutz, p. 65).
[3] Artemidoros of Daldis, born probably in
the beginning of the second century of our calendar,
has furnished us with the most complete and carefulelaboration of dream-interpretation as it existed in

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 273the Graeco-Roman world. As Gompertz has
emphasized, he ascribed great importance to the
consideration that dreams ought to be interpreted
on the basis of observation and experience, and he
drew a definite line between his own art and other
methods, which he considered fraudulent. The
principle of his art of interpretation is, according to
Gompertz, identical with that of magic: i.e., the
principle of association. The thing dreamed meantwhat it recalled to the memory- to the memory, of
course, of the dream-interpreter! This fact- that the
dream may remind the interpreter of various things,
and every interpreter of different things- leads, of
course, to uncontrollable arbitrariness and
uncertainty. The technique which I am about to
describe differs from that of the ancients in one
essential point, namely, in that it imposes upon the
dreamer himself the work of interpretation. Instead
of taking into account whatever may occur to the
dream-interpreter, it considers only what occurs tothe dreamer in connection with the dream-element

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 274concerned. According to the recent records of the
missionary, Tfinkdjit (Anthropos, 1913), it would
seem that the modern dream- interpreters of the
Orient likewise attribute much importance to the co-
operation of the dreamer. Of the dream-interpreters
among the Mesopotamian Arabs this writer relates
as follows: "Pour interpreter exactement un songe
les oniromanciens les plus habiles s'informent de
ceux qui les consultent de toutes les circonstancesqu'ils regardent necessaires pour la bonne
explication…. En un mot, nos oniromanciens ne
laissent aucune circonstance leur echapper et ne
donnent l'interpretation desiree avant d'avoir
parfaitement saisi et recu toutes les interrogations
desirables." [To interpret a dream exactly, the most
practised interpreters of dreams learn from those
who consult them all circumstances which they
regard as necessary for a good explanation…. In a
word, our interpreters allow no circumstance to be
overlooked and do not give the desiredinterpretation before perfectly taking and

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 275apprehending all desirable questions.] Among these
questions one always finds demands for precise
information in respect to near relatives (parents,
wife, children) as well as the following formula:
habistine in hoc nocte copulam conjugalem ante vel
post somnium [Did you this night have conjugal
copulation before or after the dream?] "L'idee
dominante dans l'interpretation des songes consiste
a expliquer le reve par son oppose." [The dominantidea in the interpretation of dreams consists in
explaining the dream by its opposite.]
[4] Dr. Alfred Robitsek calls my attention to
the fact that Oriental dream-books, of which ours
are pitiful plagiarisms, commonly undertake the
interpretation of dream-elements in accordance with
the assonance and similarity of words. Since these
relationships must be lost by translation into our
language, the incomprehensibility of the equivalents
in our popular "dream-books" is hereby explained.
Information as to the extraordinary significance ofpuns and the play upon words in the old Oriental

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 276cultures may be found in the writings of Hugo
Winckler. The finest example of a dream-
interpretation which has come down to us from
antiquity is based on a play upon words.
Artemidoros relates the following (p. 225): "But it
seems to me that Aristandros gave a most happy
interpretation to Alexander of Macedon. When the
latter held Tyros encompassed and in a state of
siege, and was angry and depressed over the greatwaste of time, he dreamed that he saw a Satyr
dancing on his shield. It happened that Aristandros
was in the neighbourhood of Tyros, and in the escort
of the king, who was waging war on the Syrians. By
dividing the word Satyros into sa and turos, he
induced the king to become more aggressive in the
siege. And thus Alexander became master of the
city." (Sa Turos = Thine is Tyros.) The dream,
indeed, is so intimately connected with verbal
expression that Ferenczi justly remarks that every
tongue has its own dream- language. A dream is, asa rule, not to be translated into other languages.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 277[5] After the completion of my manuscript, a
paper by Stumpf came to my notice which agrees
with my work in attempting to prove that the dream
is full of meaning and capable of interpretation. But
the interpretation is undertaken by means of an
allegorizing symbolism, and there is no guarantee
that the procedure is generally applicable.
[6] Studien uber Hysterie, 1895. [Compare
page 26 above.]
[7] Every psychologist is obliged to admit
even his own weaknesses, if he thinks by that he
may throw light on a difficult problem.
[8] However, I will not omit to mention, in
qualification of the above statement, that I have
practically never reported a complete interpretation
of a dream of my own. And I was probably right not
to trust too far to the reader's discretion.
[9] This is the first dream which I subjected
to an exhaustive interpretation.
[10] The complaint of pains in the abdomen,
as yet unexplained, may also be referred to this

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 278third person. It is my own wife, of course, who is in
question; the abdominal pains remind me of one of
the occasions on which her shyness became evident
to me. I must admit that I do not treat Irma and my
wife very gallantly in this dream, but let it be said,
in my defence, that I am measuring both of them
against the ideal of the courageous and docile
female patient.
[11] I suspect that the interpretation of this
portion has not been carried far enough to follow
every hidden meaning. If I were to continue the
comparison of the three women, I should go far
afield. Every dream has at least one point at which it
is unfathomable: a central point, as it were,
connecting it with the unknown.
[12] "Ananas," moreover, has a remarkable
assonance with the family name of my patient Irma.
[13] In this the dream did not turn out to be
prophetic. But in another sense it proved correct, for
the "unsolved" stomach pains, for which I did not

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 279want to be blamed, were the forerunners of a
serious illness, due to gall-stones.
[14] Even if I have not, as might be
expected, accounted for everything that occurred to
me in connection with the work of interpretation.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 280CHAPTER 3
THE DREAM AS WISH-FULFILMENT
When, after passing through a narrow defile,
one suddenly reaches a height beyond which the
ways part and a rich prospect lies outspread in
different directions, it is well to stop for a moment
and consider whither one shall turn next. We are in
somewhat the same position after we have
mastered this first interpretation of a dream. Wefind ourselves standing in the light of a sudden
discovery. The dream is not comparable to the
irregular sounds of a musical instrument, which,
instead of being played by the hand of a musician, is
struck by some external force; the dream is not
meaningless, not absurd, does not presuppose that
one part of our store of ideas is dormant while
another part begins to awake. It is a perfectly valid
psychic phenomenon, actually a wish-fulfilment; it
may be enrolled in the continuity of the intelligible
psychic activities of the waking state; it is built upby a highly complicated intellectual activity. But at

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 281the very moment when we are about to rejoice in
this discovery a host of problems besets us. If the
dream, as this theory defines it, represents a
fulfilled wish, what is the cause of the striking and
unfamiliar manner in which this fulfilment is
expressed? What transformation has occurred in our
dream-thoughts before the manifest dream, as we
remember it on waking, shapes itself out of them?
How has this transformation taken place? Whencecomes the material that is worked up into the
dream? What causes many of the peculiarities which
are to be observed in our dream-thoughts; for
example, how is it that they are able to contradict
one another? Is the dream capable of teaching us
something new concerning our internal psychic
processes and can its content correct opinions which
we have held during the day? I suggest that for the
present all these problems be laid aside, and that a
single path be pursued. We have found that the
dream represents a wish as fulfilled. Our nextpurpose should be to ascertain whether this is a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 282general characteristic of dreams, or whether it is
only the accidental content of the particular dream
(the dream about Irma's injection) with which we
have begun our analysis; for even if we conclude
that every dream has a meaning and psychic value,
we must nevertheless allow for the possibility that
this meaning may not be the same in every dream.
The first dream which we have considered was the
fulfilment of a wish; another may turn out to be therealization of an apprehension; a third may have a
reflection as its content; a fourth may simply
reproduce a reminiscence. Are there, then dreams
other than wish-dreams; or are there none but wish-
dreams? –
It is easy to show that the wish-fulfilment in
dreams is often undisguised and easy to recognize,
so that one may wonder why the language of
dreams has not long since been understood. There
is, for example, a dream which I can evoke as often
as I please, experimentally, as it were. If, in theevening, I eat anchovies, olives, or other strongly

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 283salted foods, I am thirsty at night, and therefore I
wake. The waking, however, is preceded by a
dream, which has always the same content, namely,
that I am drinking. I am drinking long draughts of
water; it tastes as delicious as only a cool drink can
taste when one's throat is parched; and then I
wake, and find that I have an actual desire to drink.
The cause of this dream is thirst, which I perceive
when I wake. From this sensation arises the wish todrink, and the dream shows me this wish as fulfilled.
It thereby serves a function, the nature of which I
soon surmise. I sleep well, and am not accustomed
to being waked by a bodily need. If I succeed in
appeasing my thirst by means of the dream that I
am drinking, I need not wake up in order to satisfy
that thirst. It is thus a dream of convenience. The
dream takes the place of action, as elsewhere in life.
Unfortunately, the need of water to quench the
thirst cannot be satisfied by a dream, as can my
thirst for revenge upon Otto and Dr. M, but theintention is the same. Not long ago I had the same

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 284dream in a somewhat modified form. On this
occasion I felt thirsty before going to bed, and
emptied the glass of water which stood on the little
chest beside my bed. Some hours later, during the
night, my thirst returned, with the consequent
discomfort. In order to obtain water, I should have
had to get up and fetch the glass which stood on my
wife's bed- table. I thus quite appropriately dreamt
that my wife was giving me a drink from a vase; thisvase was an Etruscan cinerary urn, which I had
brought home from Italy and had since given away.
But the water in it tasted so salt (apparently on
account of the ashes) that I was forced to wake. It
may be observed how conveniently the dream is
capable of arranging matters. Since the fulfilment of
a wish is its only purpose, it may be perfectly
egoistic. Love of comfort is really not compatible
with consideration for others. The introduction of the
cinerary urn is probably once again the fulfilment of
a wish; I regret that I no longer possess this vase;it, like the glass of water at my wife's side, is

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 285inaccessible to me. The cinerary urn is appropriate
also in connection with the sensation of an
increasingly salty taste, which I know will compel
me to wake. [1] –
Such convenience-dreams came very
frequently to me in my youth. Accustomed as I had
always been to working until late at night, early
waking was always a matter of difficulty. I used then
to dream that I was out of bed and standing at thewash-stand. After a while I could no longer shut out
the knowledge that I was not yet up; but in the
meantime I had continued to sleep. The same sort
of lethargy-dream was dreamed by a young
colleague of mine, who appears to share my
propensity for sleep. With him it assumed a
particularly amusing form. The landlady with whom
he was lodging in the neighbourhood of the hospital
had strict orders to wake him every morning at a
given hour, but she found it by no means easy to
carry out his orders. One morning sleep wasespecially sweet to him. The woman called into his

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 286room: "Herr Pepi, get up; you've got to go to the
hospital." Whereupon the sleeper dreamt of a room
in the hospital, of a bed in which he was lying, and
of a chart pinned over his head, which read as
follows: "Pepi M, medical student, 22 years of age."
He told himself in the dream: "If I am already at the
hospital, I don't have to go there," turned over, and
slept on. He had thus frankly admitted to himself his
motive for dreaming.
Here is yet another dream of which the
stimulus was active during sleep: One of my women
patients, who had been obliged to undergo an
unsuccessful operation on the jaw, was instructed by
her physicians to wear by day and night a cooling
apparatus on the affected cheek; but she was in the
habit of throwing it off as soon as she had fallen
asleep. One day I was asked to reprove her for
doing so; she had again thrown the apparatus on
the floor. The patient defended herself as follows:
"This time I really couldn't help it; it was the resultof a dream which I had during the night. In the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 287dream I was in a box at the opera, and was taking a
lively interest in the performance. But Herr Karl
Meyer was lying in the sanatorium and complaining
pitifully on account of pains in his jaw. I said to
myself, 'Since I haven't the pains, I don't need the
apparatus either'; that's why I threw it away." The
dream of this poor sufferer reminds me of an
expression which comes to our lips when we are in a
disagreeable situation: "Well, I can imagine moreamusing things!" The dream presents these "more
amusing things!" Herr Karl Meyer, to whom the
dreamer attributed her pains, was the most casual
acquaintance of whom she could think.
It is quite as simple a matter to discover the
wish-fulfilment in several other dreams which I have
collected from healthy persons. A friend who was
acquainted with my theory of dreams, and had
explained it to his wife, said to me one day: "My
wife asked me to tell you that she dreamt yesterday
that she was having her menses. You will know whatthat means." Of course I know: if the young wife

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 288dreams that she is having her menses, the menses
have stopped. I can well imagine that she would
have liked to enjoy her freedom a little longer,
before the discomforts of maternity began. It was a
clever way of giving notice of her first pregnancy.
Another friend writes that his wife had dreamt not
long ago that she noticed milk-stains on the front of
her blouse. This also is an indication of pregnancy,
but not of the first one; the young mother hopedshe would have more nourishment for the second
child than she had for the first.
A young woman who for weeks had been cut
off from all society because she was nursing a child
who was suffering from an infectious disease
dreamt, after the child had recovered, of a company
of people in which Alphonse Daudet, Paul Bourget,
Marcel Prevost and others were present; they were
all very pleasant to her and amused her enormously.
In her dream these different authors had the
features which their portraits give them. M. Prevost,with whose portrait she is not familiar, looked like

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 289the man who had disinfected the sickroom the day
before, the first outsider to enter it for a long time.
Obviously the dream is to be translated thus: "It is
about time now for something more entertaining
than this eternal nursing."
Perhaps this collection will suffice to prove
that frequently, and under the most complex
conditions, dreams may be noted which can be
understood only as wish-fulfilments, and whichpresent their content without concealment. In most
cases these are short and simple dreams, and they
stand in pleasant contrast to the confused and
overloaded dream-compositions which have almost
exclusively attracted the attention of the writers on
the subject. But it will repay us if we give some time
to the examination of these simple dreams. The
simplest dreams of all are, I suppose, to be
expected in the case of children whose psychic
activities are certainly less complicated than those of
adults. Child psychology, in my opinion, is destinedto render the same services to the psychology of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 290adults as a study of the structure or development of
the lower animals renders to the investigation of the
structure of the higher orders of animals. Hitherto
but few deliberate efforts have been made to make
use of the psychology of the child for such a
purpose.
The dreams of little children are often simple
fulfilments of wishes, and for this reason are, as
compared with the dreams of adults, by no meansinteresting. They present no problem to be solved,
but they are invaluable as affording proof that the
dream, in its inmost essence, is the fulfilment of a
wish. I have been able to collect several examples of
such dreams from the material furnished by my own
children.
For two dreams, one that of a daughter of
mine, at that time eight and a half years of age, and
the other that of a boy of five and a quarter, I am
indebted to an excursion to Hallstatt, in the summer
of 1806. I must first explain that we were living thatsummer on a hill near Aussee, from which, when the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 291weather was fine, we enjoyed a splendid view of the
Dachstein. With a telescope we could easily
distinguish the Simony hut. The children often tried
to see it through the telescope- I do not know with
what success. Before the excursion I had told the
children that Hallstatt lay at the foot of the
Dachstein. They looked forward to the outing with
the greatest delight. From Hallstatt we entered the
valley of Eschern, which enchanted the children withits constantly changing scenery. One of them,
however, the boy of five, gradually became
discontented. As often as a mountain came into
view, he would ask: "Is that the Dachstein?"
whereupon I had to reply: "No, only a foot-hill."
After this question had been repeated several times
he fell quite silent, and did not wish to accompany
us up the steps leading to the waterfall. I thought he
was tired. But the next morning he came to me,
perfectly happy, and said: "Last night I dreamt that
we went to the Simony hut." I understood him now;he had expected, when I spoke of the Dachstein,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 292that on our excursion to Hallstatt he would climb the
mountain, and would see at close quarters the hut
which had been so often mentioned when the
telescope was used. When he learned that he was
expected to content himself with foot-hills and a
waterfall he was disappointed, and became
discontented. But the dream compensated him for
all this. I tried to learn some details of the dream;
they were scanty. "You go up steps for six hours,"as he had been told.
On this excursion the girl of eight and a half
had likewise cherished wishes which had to be
satisfied by a dream. We had taken with us to
Hallstatt our neighbour's twelve-year-old boy; quite
a polished little gentleman, who, it seemed to me,
had already won the little woman's sympathies. Next
morning she related the following dream: "Just
think, I dreamt that Emil was one of the family, that
he said 'papa' and 'mamma' to you, and slept at our
house, in the big room, like one of the boys. Thenmamma came into the room and threw a handful of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 293big bars of chocolate, wrapped in blue and green
paper, under our beds." The girl's brothers, who
evidently had not inherited an understanding of
dream-interpretation, declared, just as the writers
we have quoted would have done: "That dream is
nonsense." The girl defended at least one part of the
dream, and from the standpoint of the theory of the
neuroses it is interesting to learn which part it was
that she defended: "That Emil was one of the familywas nonsense, but that about the bars of chocolate
wasn't." It was just this latter part that was obscure
to me, until my wife furnished the explanation. On
the way home from the railway- station the children
had stopped in front of a slot-machine, and had
wanted exactly such bars of chocolate, wrapped in
paper with a metallic lustre, such as the machine, in
their experience, provided. But the mother thought,
and rightly so, that the day had brought them
enough wish-fulfilments, and therefore left this wish
to be satisfied in the dream. This little scene hadescaped me. That portion of the dream which had

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 294been condemned by my daughter I understood
without any difficulty. I myself had heard the well-
behaved little guest enjoining the children, as they
were walking ahead of us, to wait until "papa" or
"mamma" had come up. For the little girl the dream
turned this temporary relationship into a permanent
adoption. Her affection could not as yet conceive of
any other way of enjoying her friend's company
permanently than the adoption pictured in herdream, which was suggested by her brothers. Why
the bars of chocolate were thrown under the bed
could not, of course, be explained without
questioning the child.
From a friend I have learned of a dream
very much like that of my little boy. It was dreamed
by a little girl of eight. Her father, accompanied by
several children, had started on a walk to Dornbach,
with the intention of visiting the Rohrer hut, but had
turned back, as it was growing late, promising the
children to take them some other time. On the wayback they passed a signpost which pointed to the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 295Hameau. The children now asked him to take them
to the Hameau, but once more, and for the same
reason, they had to be content with the promise that
they should go there some other day. Next morning
the little girl went to her father and told him, with a
satisfied air: "Papa, I dreamed last night that you
were with us at the Rohrer hut, and on the
Hameau." Thus, in the dream her impatience had
anticipated the fulfilment of the promise made byher father.
Another dream, with which the picturesque
beauty of the Aussee inspired my daughter, at that
time three and a quarter years of age, is equally
straightforward. The little girl had crossed the lake
for the first time, and the trip had passed too quickly
for her. She did not want to leave the boat at the
landing, and cried bitterly. The next morning she
told us: "Last night I was sailing on the lake." Let us
hope that the duration of this dream-voyage was
more satisfactory to her.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 296M y e l d e s t b o y , a t t h a t t i m e e i g h t y e a r s o f
age, was already dreaming of the realization of his
fancies. He had ridden in a chariot with Achilles, with
Diomedes as charioteer. On the previous day he had
shown a lively interest in a book on the myths of
Greece which had been given to his elder sister.
If it can be admitted that the talking of
children in their sleep belongs to the sphere of
dreams, I can relate the following as one of theearliest dreams in my collection: My youngest
daughter, at that time nineteen months old, vomited
one morning, and was therefore kept without food
all day. During the night she was heard to call
excitedly in her sleep: "Anna F(r)eud, St'awbewy,
wild st'awbewy, om'lette, pap!" She used her name
in this way in order to express the act of
appropriation; the menu presumably included
everything that would seem to her a desirable meal;
the fact that two varieties of strawberry appeared in
it was demonstration against the sanitaryregulations of the household, and was based on the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 297circumstance, which she had by no means
overlooked, that the nurse had ascribed her
indisposition to an over-plentiful consumption of
strawberries; so in her dream she avenged herself
for this opinion which met with her disapproval.[2]
When we call childhood happy because it
does not yet know sexual desire, we must not forget
what a fruitful source of disappointment and
renunciation, and therefore of dream- stimulation,the other great vital impulse may be for the child.[3]
Here is a second example. My nephew, twenty-two
months of age, had been instructed to congratulate
me on my birthday, and to give me a present of a
small basket of cherries, which at that time of the
year were scarce, being hardly in season. He
seemed to find the task a difficult one, for he
repeated again and again: "Cherries in it," and could
not be induced to let the little basket go out of his
hands. But he knew how to indemnify himself. He
had, until then, been in the habit of telling hismother every morning that he had dreamt of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 298"white soldier," an officer of the guard in a white
cloak, whom he had once admired in the street. On
the day after the sacrifice on my birthday he woke
up joyfully with the announcement, which could
have referred only to a dream: "He [r] man eaten all
the cherries!"[4]
What animals dream of I do not know. A
proverb, for which I am indebted to one of my
pupils, professes to tell us, for it asks the question:"What does the goose dream of?" and answers: "Of
maize."[5] The whole theory that the dream is the
fulfilment of a wish is contained in these two
sentences.[6]
We now perceive that we should have
reached our theory of the hidden meaning of dreams
by the shortest route had we merely consulted the
vernacular. Proverbial wisdom, it is true, often
speaks contemptuously enough of dreams- it
apparently seeks to justify the scientists when it
says that "dreams are bubbles"; but in colloquiallanguage the dream is predominantly the gracious

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 299fulfiller of wishes. "I should never have imagined
that in my wildest dreams," we exclaim in delight if
we find that the reality surpasses our expectations.
Footnotes
[1] The facts relating to dreams of thirst
were known also to Weygandt, who speaks of them
as follows: "It is just this sensation of thirst which is
registered most accurately of all; it always causes arepresentation of quenching the thirst. The manner
in which the dream represents the act of quenching
the thirst is manifold, and is specified in accordance
with some recent recollection. A universal
phenomenon noticeable here is the fact that the
representation of quenching the thirst is
immediately followed by disappointment in the
inefficacy of the imagined refreshment." But he
overlooks the universal character of the reaction of
the dream to the stimulus. If other persons who are
troubled by thirst at night awake without dreamingbeforehand, this does not constitute an objection to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 300my experiment, but characterizes them as persons
who sleep less soundly. Cf. Isaiah, 29. 8.
[2] The dream afterwards accomplished the
same purpose in the case of the child's
grandmother, who is older than the child by about
seventy years. After she had been forced to go
hungry for a day on account of the restlessness of
her floating kidney, she dreamed, being apparently
translated into the happy years of her girlhood, thatshe had been asked out, invited to lunch and dinner,
and had at each meal been served with the most
delicious titbits.
[3] A more searching investigation into the
psychic life of the child teaches us, of course, that
sexual motives, in infantile forms, play a very
considerable part, which has been too long
overlooked, in the psychic activity of the child. This
permits us to doubt to some extent the happiness of
the child, as imagined later by adults. Cf. Three
Contributions to the Theory of Sex.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 301[4] It should be mentioned that young
children often have more complex and obscure
dreams, while, on the other hand, adults, in certain
circumstances, often have dreams of a simple and
infantile character. How rich in unsuspected content
t h e d r e a m s o f c h i l d r e n n o m o r e t h a n f o u r o r f i v e
years of age may be is shown by the examples in
my "Analysis of a Phobia in a five-year old Boy,"
Collected Papers, III, and Jung's "ExperiencesConcerning the Psychic Life of the Child," translated
by Brill, American Journal of Psychology. April, 1910.
For analytically interpreted dreams of children, see
also von Hug-Hellmuth, Putnam, Raalte, Spielrein,
and Tausk; others by Banchieri, Busemann, Doglia,
and especially Wigam, who emphasizes the wish-
fulfilling tendency of such dreams. On the other
hand, it seems that dreams of an infantile type
reappear with especial frequency in adults who are
transferred into the midst of unfamiliar conditions.
Thus Otto Nordenskjold, in his book, Antarctic(1904, vol. i, p. 336), writes as follows of the crew

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 302who spent the winter with him: "Very characteristic
of the trend of our inmost thoughts were our
dreams, which were never more vivid and more
numerous. Even those of our comrades with whom
dreaming was formerly exceptional had long stories
to tell in the morning, when we exchanged our
experiences in the world of phantasy. They all had
reference to that outside world which was now so far
removed from us, but they often fitted into ourimmediate circumstances. An especially
characteristic dream was that in which one of our
comrades believed himself back at school, where the
task was assigned to him of skinning miniature
seals, which were manufactured especially for
purposes of instruction. Eating and drinking
constituted the pivot around which most of our
dreams revolved. One of us, who was especially
fond of going to big dinner-parties, was delighted if
he could report in the morning 'that he had had a
three-course dinner.' Another dreamed of tobacco,whole mountains of tobacco; yet another dreamed

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 303of a ship approaching on the open sea under full
sail. Still another dream deserves to be mentioned:
The postman brought the post and gave a long
explanation of why it was so long delayed; he had
delivered it at the wrong address, and only with
great trouble was he able to get it back. To be sure,
we were often occupied in our sleep with still more
impossible things, but the lack of phantasy in almost
all the dreams which I myself dreamed, or heardothers relate, was quite striking. It would certainly
have been of great psychological interest if all these
dreams could have been recorded. But one can
readily understand how we longed for sleep. That
alone could afford us everything that we all most
ardently desired." I will continue by a quotation from
Du Prel (p. 231): "Mungo Park, nearly dying of thirst
on one of his African expeditions, dreamed
constantly of the well-watered valleys and meadows
of his home. Similarly Trenck, tortured by hunger in
the fortress of Magdeburg, saw himself surroundedby copious meals. And George Back, a member of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 304Franklin's first expedition, when he was on the point
of death by starvation, dreamed continually and
invariably of plenteous meals."
[5] A Hungarian proverb cited by Ferenczi
states more explicitly that "the pig dreams of
acorns, the goose of maize." A Jewish proverb asks:
"Of what does the hen dream?"- "Of millet"
(Sammlung jud. Sprichw. u. Redensarten., edit. by
Bernstein, 2nd ed., p. 116).
[6] I am far from wishing to assert that no
previous writer has ever thought of tracing a dream
to a wish. (Cf. the first passages of the next
chapter.) Those interested in the subject will find
that even in antiquity the physician Herophilos, who
lived under the First Ptolemy, distinguished between
three kinds of dreams: dreams sent by the gods;
natural dreams- those which come about whenever
the soul creates for itself an image of that which is
beneficial to it, and will come to pass; and mixed
dreams- those which originate spontaneously fromthe juxtaposition of images, when we see that which

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 305we desire. From the examples collected by Scherner,
J. Starcke cites a dream which was described by the
author himself as a wish-fulfilment (p. 239).
Scherner says: "The phantasy immediately fulfills
the dreamer's wish, simply because this existed
vividly in the mind." This dream belongs to the
"emotional dreams." Akin to it are dreams due to
"masculine and feminine erotic longing," and to
"irritable moods." As will readily be seen, Schernerdoes not ascribe to the wish any further significance
for the dream than to any other psychic condition of
the waking state; least of all does he insist on the
connection between the wish and the essential
nature of the dream.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 306CHAPTER 4
DISTORTION IN DREAMS
If I now declare that wish-fulfilment is the
meaning of every dream, so that there cannot be
any dreams other than wish-dreams, I know
beforehand that I shall meet with the most emphatic
contradiction. My critics will object: "The fact that
there are dreams which are to be understood as
fulfilments of wishes is not new, but has long since
been recognized by such writers as Radestock,
Volkelt, Purkinje, Griesinger and others.[1] That
there can be no other dreams than those of wish-
fulfilments is yet one more unjustified
generalization, which, fortunately, can be easilyrefuted. Dreams which present the most painful
content, and not the least trace of wish-fulfilment,
occur frequently enough. The pessimistic
philosopher, Eduard von Hartmann, is perhaps most
completely opposed to the theory of wish-fulfilment.
In his Philosophy of the Unconscious, Part II
(Stereotyped German edition, p. 344), he says: 'As

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 307regards the dream, with it all the troubles of waking
life pass over into the sleeping state; all save the
one thing which may in some degree reconcile the
cultured person with life- scientific and artistic
enjoyment….' But even less pessimistic observers
have emphasized the fact that in our dreams pain
and disgust are more frequent than pleasure
(Scholz, p. 33; Volkelt, p. 80, et al.). Two ladies,
Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam, have even workedout, on the basis of their dreams, a numerical value
for the preponderance of distress and discomfort in
dreams. They find that 58 per cent of dreams are
disagreeable, and only 28.6 positively pleasant.
Besides those dreams that convey into our sleep the
many painful emotions of life, there are also
anxiety-dreams, in which this most terrible of all the
painful emotions torments us until we wake. Now it
is precisely by these anxiety dreams that children
are so often haunted (cf. Debacker on Pavor
nocturnus); and yet it was in children that you foundthe wish-fulfilment dream in its most obvious form."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 308The anxiety-dream does really seem to
preclude a generalization of the thesis deduced from
the examples given in the last chapter, that dreams
are wish-fulfilments, and even to condemn it as an
absurdity.
Nevertheless, it is not difficult to parry these
apparently invincible objections. It is merely
necessary to observe that our doctrine is not based
upon the estimates of the obvious dream- content,but relates to the thought-content, which, in the
course of interpretation, is found to lie behind the
dream. Let us compare and contrast the manifest
and the latent dream-content. It is true that there
are dreams the manifest content of which is of the
most painful nature. But has anyone ever tried to
interpret these dreams- to discover their latent
thought-content? If not, the two objections to our
doctrine are no longer valid; for there is always the
possibility that even our painful and terrifying
dreams may, upon interpretation, prove to be wishfulfilments.[2]

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 309In scientific research it is often
advantageous, if the solution of one problem
presents difficulties, to add to it a second problem;
just as it is easier to crack two nuts together instead
of separately. Thus, we are confronted not only with
the problem: How can painful and terrifying dreams
be the fulfilments of wishes? but we may add to this
a second problem which arises from the foregoing
discussion of the general problem of the dream:Why do not the dreams that show an indifferent
content, and yet turn out to be wish-fulfilments,
reveal their meaning without disguise? Take the
exhaustively treated dream of Irma's injection: it is
by no means of a painful character, and it may be
recognized, upon interpretation, as a striking wish-
fulfilment. But why is an interpretation necessary at
all? Why does not the dream say directly what it
means? As a matter of fact, the dream of Irma's
injection does not at first produce the impression
that it represents a wish of the dreamer's asfulfilled. The reader will not have received this

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 310impression, and even I myself was not aware of the
fact until I had undertaken the analysis. If we call
this peculiarity of dreams- namely, that they need
elucidation- the phenomenon of distortion in
dreams, a second question then arises: What is the
origin of this distortion in dreams?
If one's first thoughts on this subject were
consulted, several possible solutions might suggest
themselves: for example, that during sleep one isincapable of finding an adequate expression for
one's dream-thoughts. The analysis of certain
dreams, however, compels us to offer another
explanation. I shall demonstrate this by means of a
second dream of my own, which again involves
numerous indiscretions, but which compensates for
this personal sacrifice by affording a thorough
elucidation of the problem.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 311Preliminary Statement
In the spring of 1897 I learnt that two
professors of our university had proposed me for thetitle of Professor Extraordinarius (assistant
professor). The news came as a surprise to me, and
pleased me considerably as an expression of
appreciation on the part of two eminent men which
could not be explained by personal interest. But I
told myself immediately that I must not expect
anything to come of their proposal. For some years
past the Ministry had disregarded such proposals,
and several colleagues of mine, who were my
seniors and at least my equals in desert, had been
waiting in vain all this time for the appointment. Ihad no reason to suppose that I should fare any
better. I resolved, therefore, to resign myself to
disappointment. I am not, so far as I know,
ambitious, and I was following my profession with
gratifying success even without the recommendation
of a professorial title. Whether I considered the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 312grapes to be sweet or sour did not matter, since
they undoubtedly hung too high for me.
One evening a friend of mine called to see
me; one of those colleagues whose fate I had
regarded as a warning. As he had long been a
candidate for promotion to the professorate (which
in our society makes the doctor a demigod to his
patients), and as he was less resigned than I, he
was accustomed from time to time to remind theauthorities of his claims in the hope of advancing his
interests. It was after one of these visits that he
called on me. He said that this time he had driven
the exalted gentleman into a corner, and had asked
him frankly whether considerations of religious
denomination were not really responsible for the
postponement of his appointment. The answer was:
His Excellency had to admit that in the present state
of public opinion he was not in a position, etc. "Now
at least I know where I stand," my friend concluded
his narrative, which told me nothing new, but whichwas calculated to confirm me in my resignation. For

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 313the same denominational considerations would apply
to my own case.
On the morning after my friend's visit I had
the following dream, which was notable also on
account of its form. It consisted of two thoughts and
two images, so that a thought and an image
emerged alternately. But here I shall record only the
first half of the dream, since the second half has no
relation to the purpose for which I cite the dream.
I. My friend R is my uncle- I have a great
affection for him.
II. I see before me his face, somewhat
altered. It seems to be elongated; a yellow beard,
which surrounds it, is seen with peculiar
distinctness.
Then follow the other two portions of the
dream, again a thought and an image, which I omit.
The interpretation of this dream was arrived
at in the following manner:
When I recollected the dream in the course
of the morning, I laughed outright and said, "The

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 314dream is nonsense." But I could not get it out of my
mind, and I was pursued by it all day, until at last,
in the evening, I reproached myself in these words:
"If in the course of a dream-interpretation one of
your patients could find nothing better to say than
'That is nonsense,' you would reprove him, and you
would suspect that behind the dream there was
hidden some disagreeable affair, the exposure of
which he wanted to spare himself. Apply the samething to your own case; your opinion that the dream
is nonsense probably signifies merely an inner
resistance to its interpretation. Don't let yourself be
put off." I then proceeded with the interpretation.
R is my uncle. What can that mean? I had
only one uncle, my uncle Joseph.[3] His story, to be
sure, was a sad one. Once, more than thirty years
ago, hoping to make money, he allowed himself to
be involved in transactions of a kind which the law
punishes severely, and paid the penalty. My father,
whose hair turned grey with grief within a few days,used always to say that uncle Joseph had never

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 315been a bad man, but, after all, he was a simpleton.
If, then, my friend R is my uncle Joseph, that is
equivalent to saying: "R is a simpleton." Hardly
credible, and very disagreeable! But there is the face
that I saw in the dream, with its elongated features
and its yellow beard. My uncle actually had such a
face- long, and framed in a handsome yellow beard.
My friend R was extremely swarthy, but when black-
haired people begin to grow grey they pay for theglory of their youth. Their black beards undergo an
unpleasant change of colour, hair by hair; first they
turn a reddish brown, then a yellowish brown, and
then definitely grey. My friend R's beard is now in
this stage; so, for that matter, is my own, a fact
which I note with regret. The face that I see in my
dream is at once that of my friend R and that of my
uncle. It is like one of those composite photographs
of Galton's; in order to emphasize family
resemblances Galton had several faces
photographed on the same plate. No doubt is now

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 316possible; it is really my opinion that my friend R is a
simpleton- like my uncle Joseph.
I have still no idea for what purpose I have
worked out this relationship. It is certainly one to
which I must unreservedly object. Yet it is not very
profound, for my uncle was a criminal, and my
friend R is not, except in so far as he was once fined
for knocking down an apprentice with his bicycle.
Can I be thinking of this offence? That would makethe comparison ridiculous. Here I recollect another
conversation, which I had some days ago with
another colleague, N; as a matter of fact, on the
same subject. I met N in the street; he, too, has
been nominated for a professorship, and having
heard that I had been similarly honoured he
congratulated me. I refused his congratulations,
saying: "You are the last man to jest about the
matter, for you know from your own experience
what the nomination is worth." Thereupon he said,
though probably not in earnest; "You can't be sureof that. There is a special objection in my case.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 317Don't you know that a woman once brought a
criminal accusation against me? I need hardly
assure you that the matter was put right. It was a
mean attempt at blackmail, and it was all I could do
to save the plaintiff from punishment. But it may be
that the affair is remembered against me at the
Ministry. You, on the other hand, are above
reproach." Here, then, I have the criminal, and at
the same time the interpretation and tendency ofmy dream. My uncle Joseph represents both of my
colleagues who have not been appointed to the
professorship- the one as a simpleton, the other as
a criminal. Now, too, I know for what purpose I need
this representation. If denominational considerations
are a determining factor in the postponement of my
two friends' appointment, then my own appointment
is likewise in jeopardy. But if I can refer the
rejection of my two friends to other causes, which
do not apply to my own case, my hopes are
unaffected. This is the procedure followed by mydream: it makes the one friend R, a simpleton, and

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 318the other, N, a criminal. But since I am neither one
nor the other, there is nothing in common between
us. I have a right to enjoy my appointment to the
title of professor, and have avoided the distressing
application to my own case of the information which
the official gave to my friend R.
I must pursue the interpretation of this
dream still farther; for I have a feeling that it is not
yet satisfactorily elucidated. I still feel disquieted bythe ease with which I have degraded two respected
colleagues in order to clear my own way to the
professorship. My dissatisfaction with this procedure
has, of course, been mitigated since I have learned
to estimate the testimony of dreams at its true
value. I should contradict anyone who suggested
that I really considered R a simpleton, or that I did
not believe N's account of the blackmailing incident.
And of course I do not believe that Irma has been
made seriously ill by an injection of a preparation of
propyl administered by Otto. Here, as before, whatthe dream expresses is only my wish that things

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 319might be so. The statement in which my wish is
realized sounds less absurd in the second dream
than in the first; it is here made with a skilful use of
actual points of support in establishing something
like a plausible slander, one of which one could say
that "there is something in it." For at that time my
friend R had to contend with the adverse vote of a
university professor of his own department, and my
friend N had himself, all unsuspectingly, providedme with material for the calumny. Nevertheless, I
repeat, it still seems to me that the dream requires
further elucidation.
I remember now that the dream contained
yet another portion which has hitherto been ignored
by the interpretation. After it occurred to me that
my friend R was my uncle, I felt in the dream a
great affection for him. To whom is this feeling
directed? For my uncle Joseph, of course, I have
never had any feelings of affection. R has for many
years been a dearly loved friend, but if I were to goto him and express my affection for him in terms

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 320approaching the degree of affection which I felt in
the dream, he would undoubtedly be surprised. My
affection, if it was for him, seems false and
exaggerated, as does my judgment of his
intellectual qualities, which I expressed by merging
his personality in that of my uncle; but exaggerated
in the opposite direction. Now, however, a new state
of affairs dawns upon me. The affection in the
dream does not belong to the latent content, to thethoughts behind the dream; it stands in opposition
to this content; it is calculated to conceal the
knowledge conveyed by the interpretation. Probably
this is precisely its function. I remember with what
reluctance I undertook the interpretation, how long I
tried to postpone it, and how I declared the dream
to be sheer nonsense. I know from my psycho-
analytic practice how such a condemnation is to be
interpreted. It has no informative value, but merely
expresses an affect. If my little daughter does not
like an apple which is offered her, she asserts thatthe apple is bitter, without even tasting it. If my

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 321patients behave thus, I know that we are dealing
with an idea which they are trying to repress. The
same thing applies to my dream. I do not want to
interpret it because there is something in the
interpretation to which I object. After the
interpretation of the dream is completed, I discover
what it was to which I objected; it was the assertion
that R is a simpleton. I can refer the affection which
I feel for R not to the latent dream-thoughts, butrather to this unwillingness of mine. If my dream, as
compared with its latent content, is disguised at this
point, and actually misrepresents things by
producing their opposites, then the manifest
affection in the dream serves the purpose of the
misrepresentation: in other words, the distortion is
here shown to be intentional- it is a means of
disguise. My dream-thoughts of R are derogatory,
and so that I may not become aware of this the very
opposite of defamation- a tender affection for him-
enters into the dream.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 322This discovery may prove to be generally
valid. As the examples in Chapter III have
demonstrated, there are, of course, dreams which
are undisguised wish-fulfilments. Wherever a wish-
fulfilment is unrecognizable and disguised there
must be present a tendency to defend oneself
against this wish, and in consequence of this
defence the wish is unable to express itself save in a
distorted form. I will try to find a parallel in sociallife to this occurrence in the inner psychic life.
Where in social life can a similar misrepresentation
be found? Only where two persons are concerned,
one of whom possesses a certain power while the
other has to act with a certain consideration on
account of this power. The second person will then
distort his psychic actions: or, as we say, he will
mask himself. The politeness which I practise every
day is largely a disguise of this kind; if I interpret
my dreams for the benefit of my readers, I am
forced to make misrepresentations of this kind. Thepoet even complains of the necessity of such

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 323misrepresentation: Das Beste, was du wissen
kannst, darfst du den Buben doch nicht sagen: "The
best that thou canst know thou mayst not tell to
boys."
The political writer who has unpleasant
truths to tell to those in power finds himself in a like
position. If he tells everything without reserve, the
Government will suppress them- retrospectively in
the case of a verbal expression of opinion,preventively if they are to be published in the Press.
The writer stands in fear of the censorship; he
therefore moderates and disguises the expression of
his opinions. He finds himself compelled, in
accordance with the sensibilities of the censor,
either to refrain altogether from certain forms of
attack or to express himself in allusions instead of
by direct assertions; or he must conceal his
objectionable statement in an apparently innocent
disguise. He may, for instance, tell of a contretemps
between two Chinese mandarins, while he really hasin mind the officials of his own country. The stricter

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 324the domination of the censorship, the more
thorough becomes the disguise, and, often enough,
the more ingenious the means employed to put the
reader on the track of the actual meaning.
The detailed correspondence between the
phenomena of censorship and the phenomena of
dream-distortion justifies us in presupposing similar
conditions for both. We should then assume that in
every human being there exist, as the primary causeof dream-formation, two psychic forces (tendencies
or systems), one of which forms the wish expressed
by the dream, while the other exercises a censorship
over this dream-wish, thereby enforcing on it a
distortion. The question is: What is the nature of the
authority of this second agency by virtue of which it
is able to exercise its censorship? If we remember
that the latent dream- thoughts are not conscious
before analysis, but that the manifest dream-content
emerging from them is
consciously remembered, it is not a far-
fetched assumption that admittance to the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 325consciousness is the prerogative of the second
agency. Nothing can reach the consciousness from
the first system which has not previously passed the
second instance; and the second instance lets
nothing pass without exercising its rights, and
forcing such modifications as are pleasing to itself
upon the candidates for admission to consciousness.
Here we arrive at a very definite conception of the
essence of consciousness; for us the state ofbecoming conscious is a special psychic act, different
from and independent of the process of becoming
fixed or represented, and consciousness appears to
us as a sensory organ which perceives a content
proceeding from another source. It may be shown
that psycho-pathology simply cannot dispense with
these fundamental assumptions. But we shall
reserve for another time a more exhaustive
examination of the subject.
If I bear in mind the notion of the two
psychic instances and their relation to theconsciousness, I find in the sphere of politics a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 326perfectly appropriate analogy to the extraordinary
affection which I feel for my friend R, who is so
disparaged in the dream-interpretation. I refer to
the political life of a State in which the ruler, jealous
of his rights, and an active public opinion are in
mutual conflict. The people, protesting against the
actions of an unpopular official, demand his
dismissal. The autocrat, on the other hand, in order
to show his contempt for the popular will, may thendeliberately confer upon the official some
exceptional distinction which otherwise would not
have been conferred. Similarly, my second instance,
controlling the access to my consciousness,
distinguishes my friend R with a rush of
extraordinary affection, because the wish-
tendencies of the first system, in view of a particular
interest on which they are just then intent, would
like to disparage him as a simpleton.[4]
We may now perhaps begin to suspect that
dream-interpretation is capable of yieldinginformation concerning the structure of our psychic

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 327apparatus which we have hitherto vainly expected
from philosophy. We shall not, however, follow up
this trail, but shall return to our original problem as
soon as we have elucidated the problem of dream-
distortion. The question arose, how dreams with a
disagreeable content can be analysed as wish-
fulfillments. We see now that this is possible where
a dream- distortion has occurred, when the
disagreeable content serves only to disguise thething wished for. With regard to our assumptions
respecting the two psychic instances, we can now
also say that disagreeable dreams contain, as a
matter of fact, something which is disagreeable to
the second instance, but which at the same time
fulfills a wish of the first instance. They are wish-
dreams in so far as every dream emanates from the
first instance, while the second instance behaves
towards the dream only in a defensive, not in a
constructive manner.[5] Were we to limit ourselves
to a consideration of what the second instancecontributes to the dream we should never

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 328understand the dream, and all the problems which
the writers on the subject have discovered in the
dream would have to remain unsolved.
That the dream actually has a secret
meaning, which proves to be a wish-fulfillment,
must be proved afresh in every case by analysis. I
will therefore select a few dreams which have painful
contents, and endeavour to analyse them. Some of
them are dreams of hysterical subjects, whichtherefore call for a long preliminary statement, and
in some passages an examination of the psychic
processes occurring in hysteria. This, though it will
complicate the presentation, is unavoidable.
When I treat a psychoneurotic patient
analytically, his dreams regularly, as I have said,
become a theme of our conversations. I must
therefore give him all the psychological explanations
with whose aid I myself have succeeded in
understanding his symptoms. And here I encounter
unsparing criticism, which is perhaps no less shrewdthan that which I have to expect from my

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 329colleagues. With perfect uniformity, my patients
contradict the doctrine that dreams are the
fulfillments of wishes. Here are several examples of
the sort of dream-material which is adduced in
refutation of my theory.
"You are always saying that a dream is a
wish fulfilled," begins an intelligent lady patient.
"Now I shall tell you a dream in which the content is
quite the opposite, in which a wish of mine is notfulfilled. How do you reconcile that with your theory?
The dream was as follows: I want to give a supper,
but I have nothing available except some smoked
salmon. I think I will go shopping, but I remember
that it is Sunday afternoon, when all the shops are
closed. I then try to ring up a few caterers, but the
telephone is out of order. Accordingly I have to
renounce my desire to give a supper."
I reply, of course, that only the analysis can
decide the meaning of this dream, although I admit
that at first sight it seems sensible and coherent andlooks like the opposite of a wish- fulfilment. "But

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 330what occurrence gave rise to this dream?" I ask.
"You know that the stimulus of a dream always lies
among the experiences of the preceding day."
Analysis
The patient's husband, an honest and
capable meat salesman, had told her the day beforethat he was growing too fat, and that he meant to
undergo treatment for obesity. He would rise early,
take physical exercise, keep to a strict diet, and
above all accept no more invitations to supper. She
proceeds jestingly to relate how her husband, at a
table d'hote, had made the acquaintance of an
artist, who insisted upon painting his portrait,
because he, the painter, had never seen such an
expressive head. But her husband had answered in
his downright fashion, that while he was much
obliged, he would rather not be painted; and he wasquite convinced that a bit of a pretty girl's posterior
would please the artist better than his whole
face.[6] She is very much in love with her husband,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 331and teases him a good deal. She has asked him not
to give her any caviar. What can that mean?
Goethe: And if he has no backside, How can
the nobleman sit?
As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a
long time to eat a caviar sandwich every morning,
but had grudged the expense. Of course she could
get the caviar from her husband at once if she asked
for it. But she has, on the contrary, begged him notto give her any caviar, so that she might tease him
about it a little longer.
(To me this explanation seems thin.
Unconfessed motives are wont to conceal
themselves behind just such unsatisfying
explanations. We are reminded of the subjects
hypnotized by Bernheim, who carried out a post-
hypnotic order, and who, on being questioned as to
their motives, instead of answering: "I do not know
why I did that." had to invent a reason that was
obviously inadequate. There is probably somethingsimilar to this in the case of my patient's caviar. I

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 332see that in waking life she is compelled to invent an
unfulfilled wish. Her dream also shows her the non-
fulfillment of her wish. But why does she need an
unfulfilled wish?)
The ideas elicited so far are insufficient for
the interpretation of the dream. I press for more.
After a short pause, which corresponds to the
overcoming of a resistance, she reports that the day
before she had paid a visit to a friend of whom sheis really jealous because her husband is always
praising this lady so highly. Fortunately this friend is
very thin and lanky, and her husband likes full
figures. Now of what did this thin friend speak? Of
course, of her wish to become rather plumper. She
also asked my patient: "When are you going to
invite us again? You always have such good food."
Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I am
able to tell the patient: "It is just as though you had
thought at the moment of her asking you that: 'Of
course, I'm to invite you so that you can eat at myhouse and get fat and become still more pleasing to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 333my husband! I would rather give no more suppers!'
The dream then tells you that you cannot give a
supper, thereby fulfilling your wish not to contribute
anything to the rounding out of your friend's figure.
Your husband's resolution to accept no more
invitations to supper in order that he may grow thin
teaches you that one grows fat on food eaten at
other people's tables." Nothing is lacking now but
some sort of coincidence which will confirm thesolution. The smoked salmon in the dream has not
yet been traced.- "How did you come to think of
salmon in your dream?"- "Smoked salmon is my
friend's favourite dish," she replied. It happens that
I know the lady, and am able to affirm that she
grudges herself salmon just as my patient grudges
herself caviar.
This dream admits of yet another and more
exact interpretation- one which is actually
necessitated only by a subsidiary circumstance. The
two interpretations do not contradict one another,but rather dovetail into one another, and furnish an

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 334excellent example of the usual ambiguity of dreams,
as of all other psycho-pathological formations. We
have heard that at the time of her dream of a denied
wish the patient was impelled to deny herself a real
wish (the wish to cat caviar sandwiches). Her friend,
too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get fatter,
and it would not surprise us if our patient had
dreamt that this wish of her friend's- the wish to
increase in weight- was not to be fulfilled. Instead ofthis, however, she dreamt that one of her own
wishes was not fulfilled. The dream becomes capable
of a new interpretation if in the dream she does not
mean herself, but her friend, if she has put herself in
the place of her friend, or, as we may say, has
identified herself with her friend.
I think she has actually done this, and as a
sign of this identification she has created for herself
in real life an unfulfilled wish. But what is the
meaning of this hysterical identification? To
elucidate this a more exhaustive exposition isnecessary. Identification is a highly important

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 335motive in the mechanism of hysterical symptoms;
by this means patients are enabled to express in
their symptoms not merely their own experiences,
but the experiences of quite a number of other
persons; they can suffer, as it were, for a whole
mass of people, and fill all the parts of a drama with
their own personalities. It will here be objected that
this is the well-known hysterical imitation, the ability
of hysterical subjects to imitate all the symptomswhich impress them when they occur in others, as
though pity were aroused to the point of
reproduction. This, however, only indicates the path
which the psychic process follows in hysterical
imitation. But the path itself and the psychic act
which follows this path are two different matters.
The act itself is slightly more complicated than we
are prone to believe the imitation of the hysterical to
be; it corresponds to an unconscious end-process,
as an example will show. The physician who has, in
the same ward with other patients, a female patientsuffering from a particular kind of twitching, is not

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 336surprised if one morning he learns that this peculiar
hysterical affection has found imitators. He merely
tells himself: The others have seen her, and have
imitated her; this is psychic infection. Yes, but
psychic infection occurs somewhat in the following
manner: As a rule, patients know more about one
another than the physician knows about any one of
them, and they are concerned about one another
when the doctor's visit is over. One of them has anattack to-day: at once it is known to the rest that a
letter from home, a recrudescence of lovesickness,
or the like, is the cause. Their sympathy is aroused,
and although it does not emerge into consciousness
they form the following conclusion: "If it is possible
to suffer such an attack from such a cause, I too
may suffer this sort of an attack, for I have the
same occasion for it." If this were a conclusion
capable of becoming conscious, it would perhaps
express itself in dread of suffering a like attack; but
it is formed in another psychic region, andconsequently ends in the realization of the dreaded

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 337symptoms. Thus identification is not mere imitation,
but an assimilation based upon the same aetiological
claim; it expresses a just like, and refers to some
common condition which has remained in the
unconscious.
In hysteria, identification is most frequently
employed to express a sexual community. The
hysterical woman identifies herself by her symptoms
most readily- though not exclusively- with personswith whom she has had sexual relations, or who
have had sexual intercourse with the same persons
as herself. Language takes cognizance of this
tendency: two lovers are said to be "one." In
hysterical phantasy, as well as in dreams,
identification may ensue if one simply thinks of
sexual relations; they need not necessarily become
actual. The patient is merely following the rules of
the hysterical processes of thought when she
expresses her jealousy of her friend (which, for that
matter, she herself admits to be unjustified) byputting herself in her friend's place in her dream,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 338and identifying herself with her by fabricating a
symptom (the denied wish). One might further
elucidate the process by saying: In the dream she
puts herself in the place of her friend, because her
friend has taken her own place in relation to her
husband, and because she would like to take her
friend's place in her husband's esteem.[7] –
The contradiction of my theory of dreams on
the part of another female patient, the mostintelligent of all my dreamers, was solved in a
simpler fashion, though still in accordance with the
principle that the non-fulfilment of one wish signified
the fulfilment of another. I had one day explained to
her that a dream is a wish-fulfilment. On the
following day she related a dream to the effect that
she was travelling with her mother-in- law to the
place in which they were both to spend the summer.
Now I knew that she had violently protested against
spending the summer in the neighbourhood of her
mother-in-law. I also knew that she had fortunatelybeen able to avoid doing so, since she had recently

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 339succeeded in renting a house in a place quite remote
from that to which her mother-in-law was going.
And now the dream reversed this desired solution.
Was not this a flat contradiction of my theory of
wish-fulfilment? One had only to draw the inferences
from this dream in order to arrive at its
interpretation. According to this dream, I was
wrong; but it was her wish that I should be wrong,
and this wish the dream showed her as fulfilled. Butthe wish that I should be wrong, which was fulfilled
in the theme of the country house, referred in reality
to another and more serious matter. At that time I
had inferred, from the material furnished by her
analysis, that something of significance in respect to
her illness must have occurred at a certain time in
her life. She had denied this, because it was not
present in her memory. We soon came to see that I
was right. Thus her wish that I should prove to be
wrong, which was transformed into the dream that
she was going into the country with her mother-in-law, corresponded with the justifiable wish that

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 340those things which were then only suspected had
never occurred.
Without an analysis, and merely by means
of an assumption, I took the liberty of interpreting a
little incident in the life of a friend, who had been
my companion through eight classes at school. He
once heard a lecture of mine, delivered to a small
audience, on the novel idea that dreams are wish-
fulfilments. He went home, dreamt that he had lostall his lawsuits- he was a lawyer- and then
complained to me about it. I took refuge in the
evasion: "One can't win all one's cases"; but I
thought to myself: "If, for eight years, I sat as
primus on the first bench, while he moved up and
down somewhere in the middle of the class, may he
not naturally have had the wish, ever since his
boyhood, that I too might for once make a fool of
myself?"
Yet another dream of a more gloomy
character was offered me by a female patient incontradiction of my theory of the wish-dream. This

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 341patient, a young girl, began as follows: "You
remember that my sister has now only one boy,
Charles. She lost the elder one, Otto, while I was
still living with her. Otto was my favourite; it was I
who really brought him up. I like the other little
fellow, too, but, of course, not nearly as much as his
dead brother. Now I dreamt last night that I saw
Charles lying dead before me. He was lying in his
little coffin, his hands folded; there were candles allabout; and, in short, it was just as it was at the time
of little Otto's death, which gave me such a shock.
Now tell me, what does this mean? You know me-
am I really so bad as to wish that my sister should
lose the only child she has left? Or does the dream
mean that I wish that Charles had died rather than
Otto, whom I liked so much better?"
I assured her that this latter interpretation
was impossible. After some reflection, I was able to
give her the interpretation of the dream, which she
subsequently confirmed. I was able to do so because

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 342the whole previous history of the dreamer was
known to me.
Having become an orphan at an early age,
the girl had been brought up in the home of a much
older sister, and had met, among the friends and
visitors who frequented the house, a man who made
a lasting impression upon her affections. It looked
for a time as though these barely explicit relations
would end in marriage, but this happy culminationwas frustrated by the sister, whose motives were
never completely explained. After the rupture the
man whom my patient loved avoided the house; she
herself attained her independence some time after
the death of little Otto, to whom, meanwhile, her
affections had turned. But she did not succeed in
freeing herself from the dependence due to her
affection for her sister's friend. Her pride bade her
avoid him, but she found it impossible to transfer
her love to the other suitors who successively
presented themselves. Whenever the man sheloved, who was a member of the literary profession,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 343announced a lecture anywhere, she was certain to
be found among the audience; and she seized every
other opportunity of seeing him unobserved. I
remembered that on the previous day she had told
me that the Professor was going to a certain
concert, and that she too was going, in order to
enjoy the sight of him. This was on the day before
the dream; and the concert was to be given on the
day on which she told me the dream. I could noweasily see the correct interpretation, and I asked her
whether she could think of any particular event
which had occurred after Otto's death. She replied
immediately: "Of course; the Professor returned
then, after a long absence, and I saw him once more
beside little Otto's coffin." It was just as I had
expected. I interpreted the dream as follows: "If
now the other boy were to die, the same thing
would happen again. You would spend the day with
your sister; the Professor would certainly come to
offer his condolences, and you would see him oncemore under the same circumstances as before. The

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 344dream signifies nothing more than this wish of yours
to see him again- a wish against which you are
fighting inwardly. I know that you have the ticket for
today's concert in your bag. Your dream is a dream
of impatience; it has anticipated by several hours
the meeting which is to take place to-day."
In order to disguise her wish she had
obviously selected a situation in which wishes of the
sort are commonly suppressed- a situation sosorrowful that love is not even thought of. And yet it
is entirely possible that even in the actual situation
beside the coffin of the elder, more dearly loved
boy, she had not been able to suppress her tender
affection for the visitor whom she had missed for so
long.
A different explanation was found in the case
of a similar dream of another patient, who in earlier
life had been distinguished for her quick wit and her
cheerful disposition, and who still displayed these
qualities, at all events in the free associations whichoccurred to her during treatment. In the course of a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 345longer dream, it seemed to this lady that she saw
her fifteen-year-old daughter lying dead before her
in a box. She was strongly inclined to use this
dream-image as an objection to the theory of wish-
fulfilment, although she herself suspected that the
detail of the box must lead to a different conception
of the dream.[8] For in the course of the analysis it
occurred to her that on the previous evening the
conversation of the people in whose company shefound herself had turned on the English word box,
and upon the numerous translations of it into
German such as Schachtel (box), Loge (box at the
theatre), Kasten (chest), Ohrfeige (box on the ear),
etc. From other components of the same dream it
was now possible to add the fact that the lady had
guessed at the relationship between the English
word "box" and the German Buchse, and had then
been haunted by the recollection that Buchse is used
in vulgar parlance to denote the female genitals. It
was therefore possible, treating her knowledge oftopographical anatomy with a certain indulgence, to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 346assume that the child in the box signified a child in
the mother's womb. At this stage of the explanation
she no longer denied that the picture in the dream
actually corresponded with a wish of hers. Like so
many other young women, she was by no means
happy on finding that she was pregnant, and she
had confessed to me more than once the wish that
her child might die before its birth; in a fit of anger,
following a violent scene with her husband, she hadeven struck her abdomen with her fists, in order to
injure the child within. The dead child was therefore,
really the fulfilment of a wish, but a wish which had
been put aside for fifteen years, and it is not
surprising that the fulfilment of the wish was no
longer recognized after so long an interval. For there
had been many changes in the meantime.
The group of dreams (having as content the
death of beloved relatives) to which belong the last
two mentioned will be considered again under the
head of "Typical Dreams." I shall then be able toshow by new examples that in spite of their

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 347undesirable content all these dreams must be
interpreted as wish- fulfilments. For the following
dream, which again was told me in order to deter
me from a hasty generalization of my theory, I am
indebted, not to a patient, but to an intelligent jurist
of my acquaintance. "I dream," my informant tells
me, "that I am walking in front of my house with a
lady on my arm. Here a closed carriage is waiting; a
man steps up to me, shows me his authorization asa police officer, and requests me to follow him. I ask
only for time in which to arrange my affairs." The
jurist then asks me: "Can you possibly suppose that
it is my wish to be arrested?"- "Of course not," I
have to admit. "Do you happen to know upon what
charge you were arrested?"- "Yes; I believe for
infanticide."- "Infanticide? But you know that only a
mother can commit this crime upon her new-born
child?"- "That is true."[9] "And under what
circumstances did you dream this? What happened
on the evening before?"- "I would rather not tellyou- it is a delicate matter."- "But I need it,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 348otherwise we must forgo the interpretation of the
dream."- "Well, then, I will tell you. I spent the
night, not at home, but in the house of a lady who
means a great deal to me. When we awoke in the
morning, something again passed between us. Then
I went to sleep again, and dreamt what I have told
you."- "The woman is married?"- "Yes."- "And you
do not wish her to conceive?"- "No; that might
betray us."- "Then you do not practice normalcoitus?"- "I take the precaution to withdraw before
ejaculation."- "Am I to assume that you took this
precaution several times during the night, and that
in the morning you were not quite sure whether you
had succeeded?"- "That might be so."- "Then your
dream is the fulfilment of a wish. By the dream you
are assured that you have not begotten a child, or,
what amounts to the same thing, that you have
killed the child. I can easily demonstrate the
connecting-links. Do you remember, a few days ago
we were talking about the troubles of matrimony,and about the inconsistency of permitting coitus so

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 349long as no impregnation takes place, while at the
same time any preventive act committed after the
ovum and the semen meet and a foetus is formed is
punished as a crime? In this connection we recalled
the medieval controversy about the moment of time
at which the soul actually enters into the foetus,
since the concept of murder becomes admissible
only from that point onwards. Of course, too, you
know the gruesome poem by Lenau, which putsinfanticide and birth-control on the same plane."-
"Strangely enough, I happened, as though by
chance, to think of Lenau this morning."- "Another
echo of your dream. And now I shall show you yet
another incidental wish-fulfilment in your dream.
You walk up to your house with the lady on your
arm. So you take her home, instead of spending the
night at her house, as you did in reality. The fact
that the wish-fulfilment, which is the essence of the
dream, disguises itself in such an unpleasant form,
has perhaps more than one explanation. From myessay on the aetiology of anxiety neurosis, you will

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 350see that I note coitus interruptus as one of the
factors responsible for the development of neurotic
fear. It would be consistent with this if, after
repeated coitus of this kind, you were left in an
uncomfortable frame of mind, which now becomes
an element of the composition of your dream. You
even make use of this uncomfortable state of mind
to conceal the wish-fulfilment. At the same time, the
mention of infanticide has not yet been explained.Why does this crime, which is peculiar to females,
occur to you?"- "I will confess to you that I was
involved in such an affair years ago. I was
responsible for the fact that a girl tried to protect
herself from the consequences of a liaison with me
by procuring an abortion. I had nothing to do with
the carrying out of her plan, but for a long time I
was naturally worried in case the affair might be
discovered."- "I understand. This recollection
furnished a second reason why the supposition that
you had performed coitus interruptus clumsily musthave been painful to you."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 351A young physician, who heard this dream
related in my lecture- room, must have felt that it
fitted him, for he hastened to imitate it by a dream
of his own, applying its mode of thinking to another
theme. On the previous day he had furnished a
statement of his income; a quite straightforward
statement, because he had little to state. He dreamt
that an acquaintance of his came from a meeting of
the tax commission and informed him that all theother statements had passed unquestioned, but that
his own had aroused general suspicion, with the
result that he would be punished with a heavy fine.
This dream is a poorly disguised fulfilment of the
wish to be known as a physician with a large
income. It also calls to mind the story of the young
girl who was advised against accepting her suitor
because he was a man of quick temper, who would
assuredly beat her after their marriage. Her answer
was: "I wish he would strike me!" Her wish to be
married was so intense that she had taken intoconsideration the discomforts predicted for this

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 352marriage; she had even raised them to the plane of
a wish.
If I group together the very frequent dreams
of this sort, which seem flatly to contradict my
theory, in that they embody the denial of a wish or
some occurrence obviously undesired, under the
head of counter-wish-dreams, I find that they may
all be referred to two principles, one of which has
not yet been mentioned, though it plays a large partin waking as well as dream-life. One of the motives
inspiring these dreams is the wish that I should
appear in the wrong. These dreams occur regularly
in the course of treatment whenever the patient is in
a state of resistance; indeed, I can with a great
degree of certainty count on evoking such a dream
once I have explained to the patient my theory that
the dream is a wish-fulfilment.[10] Indeed, I have
reason to expect that many of my readers will have
such dreams, merely to fulfil the wish that I may
prove to be wrong. The last dream which I shallrecount from among those occurring in the course of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 353treatment once more demonstrates this very thing.
A young girl who had struggled hard to continue my
treatment, against the will of her relatives and the
authorities whom they had consulted, dreamt the
following dream: At home she is forbidden to come
to me any more. She then reminds me of the
promise I made her to treat her for nothing if
necessary, and I tell her: "I can show no
consideration in money matters."
It is not at all easy in this case to
demonstrate the fulfilment of a wish, but in all cases
of this kind there is a second problem, the solution
of which helps also to solve the first. Where does
she get the words which she puts into my mouth? Of
course, I have never told her anything of the kind;
but one of her brothers, the one who has the
greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to
make this remark about me. It is then the purpose
of the dream to show that her brother is right; and
she does not try to justify this brother merely in the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 354dream; it is her purpose in life and the motive of her
illness.
A dream which at first sight presents
peculiar difficulties for the theory of wish-fulfilment
was dreamed by a physician (Aug. Starcke) and
interpreted by him: "I have and see on the last
phalange of my left forefinger a primary syphilitic
affection."
One may perhaps be inclined to refrain from
analysing this dream, since it seems clear and
coherent, except for its unwished-for content.
However, if one takes the trouble to make an
analysis, one learns that primary affection reduces
itself to prima affectio (first love), and that the
repulsive sore, in the words of Starcke, proves to be
"the representative of wish-fulfilments charged with
intense emotion."[11]
The other motive for counter-wish-dreams is
so clear that there is a danger of overlooking it, as
happened in my own case for a long time. In thesexual constitution of many persons there is a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 355masochistic component, which has arisen through
the conversion of the aggressive, sadistic component
into its opposite. Such people are called ideal
masochists if they seek pleasure not in the bodily
pain which may be inflicted upon them, but in
humiliation and psychic chastisement. It is obvious
that such persons may have counter-wish-dreams
and disagreeable dreams, yet these are for them
nothing more than wish-fulfilments, which satisfytheir masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream:
A young man, who in earlier youth greatly
tormented his elder brother, toward whom he was
homosexually inclined, but who has since undergone
a complete change of character, has the following
dream, which consists of three parts: (1) He is
"teased" by his brother. (2) Two adults are caressing
each other with homosexual intentions. (3) His
brother has sold the business the management of
which the young man had reserved for his own
future. From this last dream he awakens with themost unpleasant feelings; and yet it is a masochistic

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 356wish-dream, which might be translated: It would
serve me right if my brother were to make that sale
against my interests. It would be my punishment for
all the torments he has suffered at my hands.
I hope that the examples given above will
suffice- until some further objection appears- to
make it seem credible that even dreams with a
painful content are to be analysed as wish-
fulfilments.[12] Nor should it be considered a merematter of chance that, in the course of
interpretation, one always happens upon subjects
about which one does not like to speak or think. The
disagreeable sensation which such dreams arouse is
of course precisely identical with the antipathy which
would, and usually does, restrain us from treating or
discussing such subjects- an antipathy which must
be overcome by all of us if we find ourselves obliged
to attack the problem of such dreams. But this
disagreeable feeling which recurs in our dreams
does not preclude the existence of a wish; everyonehas wishes which he would not like to confess to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 357others, which he does not care to admit even to
himself. On the other hand, we feel justified in
connecting the unpleasant character of all these
dreams with the fact of dream-distortion, and in
concluding that these dreams are distorted, and that
their wish-fulfilment is disguised beyond recognition,
precisely because there is a strong revulsion
against- a will to repress- the subject-matter of the
dream, or the wish created by it. Dream-distortion,then, proves in reality to be an act of censorship.
We shall have included everything which the
analysis of disagreeable dreams has brought to light
if we reword our formula thus: The dream is the
(disguised) fulfilment of a (suppressed, repressed)
wish.[13]
I will here anticipate by citing the
amplification and modification of this fundamental
formula propounded by Otto Rank: "On the basis of
and with the aid of repressed infantile-sexual
material, dreams regularly represent as fulfilledcurrent, and as a rule also erotic, wishes in a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 358disguised and symbolic form" (Ein Traum, der sich
selbst deutet).
Nowhere have I said that I have accepted
this formula of Rank's. The shorter version contained
in the text seems to me sufficient. But the fact that I
merely mentioned Rank's modification was enough
to expose psycho-analysis to the oft-repeated
reproach that it asserts that all dreams have a
sexual content. If one understands this sentence asit is intended to be understood, it only proves how
little conscientiousness our critics are wont to
display, and how ready our opponents are to
overlook statements if they do not accord with their
aggressive inclinations. Only a few pages back I
mentioned the manifold wish-fulfilments of children's
dreams (to make an excursion on land and or water,
to make up for an omitted meal, etc.). Elsewhere I
have mentioned dreams excited by thirst and the
desire to evacuate, and mere comfort- or
convenience-dreams. Even Rank does not make anabsolute assertion. He says "as a rule also erotic

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 359wishes," and this can be completely confirmed in the
case of most dreams of adults.
The matter has, however, a different aspect
if we employ the word sexual in the sense of Eros,
as the word is understood by psycho- analysts. But
the interesting problem of whether all dreams are
not produced by libidinal motives (in opposition to
destructive ones) has hardly been considered by our
opponents.
Now there still remain to be considered, as a
particular sub- order of dreams with painful content,
the anxiety-dreams, the inclusion of which among
the wish-dreams will be still less acceptable to the
uninitiated. But I can here deal very cursorily with
the problem of anxiety-dreams; what they have to
reveal is not a new aspect of the dream-problem;
here the problem is that of understanding neurotic
anxiety in general. The anxiety which we experience
in dreams is only apparently explained by the
dream- content. If we subject that content toanalysis, we become aware that the dream-anxiety

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 360is no more justified by the dream-content than the
anxiety in a phobia is justified by the idea to which
the phobia is attached. For example, it is true that it
is possible to fall out of a window, and that a certain
care should be exercised when one is at a window,
but it is not obvious why the anxiety in the
corresponding phobia is so great, and why it
torments its victims more than its cause would
warrant. The same explanation which applies to thephobia applies also to the anxiety-dream. In either
case, the anxiety is only fastened on to the idea
which accompanies it, and is derived from another
source.
On account of this intimate relation of
dream-anxiety to neurotic anxiety, the discussion of
the former obliges me to refer to the latter. In a
little essay on Anxiety Neurosis,[14] written in 1895,
I maintain that neurotic anxiety has its origin in the
sexual life, and corresponds to a libido which has
been deflected from its object and has found noemployment. The accuracy of this formula has since

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 361then been demonstrated with ever-increasing
certainty. From it we may deduce the doctrine that
anxiety-dreams are dreams of sexual content, and
that the libido appertaining to this content has been
transformed into anxiety. Later on I shall have an
opportunity of confirming this assertion by the
analysis of several dreams of neurotics. In my
further attempts to arrive at a theory of dreams I
shall again have occasion to revert to the conditionsof anxiety-dreams and their compatibility with the
theory of wish-fulfilment.
Footnotes
[1] Already Plotinus, the neo-Platonist, said:
"When desire bestirs itself, then comes phantasy,
and presents to us, as it were, the object of desire"
(Du Prel, p. 276).
[2] It is quite incredible with what obstinacy
readers and critics have excluded this consideration
and disregarded the fundamental differentiationbetween the manifest and the latent dream-

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 362content. Nothing in the literature of the subject
approaches so closely to my own conception of
dreams as a passage in J. Sully's essay, Dreams as
a Revelation (and it is not because I do not think it
valuable that I allude to it here for the first time):
"It would seem then, after all, that dreams are not
the utter nonsense they have been said to be by
such authorities as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and
Milton. The chaotic aggregations of our night-fancyhave a significance and communicate new
knowledge. Like some letter in cipher, the dream-
inscription when scrutinized closely loses its first
look of balderdash and takes on the aspect of a
serious, intelligible message. Or, to vary the figure
slightly, we may say that, like some palimpsest, the
dream discloses beneath its worthless surface-
characters traces of an old and precious
communication" (p. 364).
[3] It is astonishing to see how my memory
here restricts itself- in the waking state!- for thepurposes of analysis. I have known five of my uncles

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 363and I loved and honoured one of them. But at the
moment when I overcame my resistance to the
interpretation of the dream, I said to myself: "I have
only one uncle, the one who is intended in the
dream."
[4] Such hypocritical dreams are not rare,
either with me or with others. While I have been
working at a certain scientific problem, I have been
visited for several nights, at quite short intervals, bya somewhat confusing dream which has as its
content a reconciliation with a friend dropped long
ago. After three or four attempts I finally succeeded
in grasping the meaning of this dream. It was in the
nature of an encouragment to give up the remnant
of consideration still surviving for the person in
question, to make myself quite free from him, but it
hypocritically disguised itself in its antithesis. I have
recorded a "hypocritical Oedipus dream" in which
the hostile feelings and death-wishes of the dream-
thoughts were replaced by manifest tenderness("Typisches Beispiel eines verkappten

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 364Oedipustraumes." Zentralblatt fur Psychoanalyse,
Vol. I, No. I-II [1910]). Another class of hypocritical
dreams will be recorded in another place (see Chap
vi, "The Dream-Work").
[5] Later on we shall become acquainted
with cases in which, on the contrary, the dream
expresses a wish of this second instance. –
[6] To sit for the painter.
[7] I myself regret the inclusion of such
passages from the psycho- pathology of hysteria,
which, because of their fragmentary presentation,
and because they are torn out of their context,
cannot prove to be very illuminating. If these
passages are capable of throwing any light upon the
intimate relations between dream and the psycho-
neurosis, they have served the intention with which
I have included them.
[8] As in the dream of the deferred supper
and the smoked salmon. –
[9] It often happens that a dream is told
incompletely, and that a recollection of the omitted

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 365portions appears only in the course of the analysis.
These portions, when subsequently fitted in,
invariably furnish the key to the interpretation. Cf.
Chapter VII, on forgetting of dreams.
[10] Similar counter-wish-dreams have been
repeatedly reported to me within the last few years,
by those who attend my lectures, as their reaction
to their first encounter with the wish-theory of
dreams.
[11] Zentralblatt fur Psychoanalyse, Jahrg.
II, 1911-12.
[12] I will here observe that we have not yet
disposed of this theme; we shall discuss it again
later.
[13] A great contemporary poet, who, I am
told, will hear nothing of psycho-analysis and
dream-interpretation, has nevertheless derived from
his own experience an almost identical formula for
the nature of the dream: "Unauthorized emergence
of suppressed yearnings under false features and

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 366names" (C. Spitteler, "Meine fruhesten Erlebnisse,"
in Suddeutsche Monatshefte, October, 1913).
[14] See [previous reference] above.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 367CHAPTER 5 (Part 1)
THE MATERIAL AND SOURCES OF DREAMS
Having realized, as a result of analysing the
dream of Irma's injection, that the dream was the
fulfilment of a wish, we were immediately interested
to ascertain whether we had thereby discovered a
general characteristic of dreams, and for the time
being we put aside every other scientific problemwhich may have suggested itself in the course of the
interpretation. Now that we have reached the goal
on this one path, we may turn back and select a
new point of departure for exploring dream-
problems, even though we may for a time lose sight
of the theme of wish- fulfilment, which has still to be
further considered.
Now that we are able, by applying our
process of interpretation, to detect a latent dream-
content whose significance far surpasses that of the
manifest dream-content, we are naturally impelledto return to the individual dream-problems, in order

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 368to see whether the riddles and contradictions which
seemed to elude us when we had only the manifest
content to work upon may not now be satisfactorily
solved.
The opinions of previous writers on the
relation of dreams to waking life, and the origin of
the material of dreams, have not been given here.
We may recall however three peculiarities of the
memory in dreams, which have been often noted,but never explained:
1. That the dream clearly prefers the
impressions of the last few days (Robert, Strumpell,
Hildebrandt; also Weed-Hallam);
2. That it makes a selection in accordance
with principles other than those governing our
waking memory, in that it recalls not essential and
important, but subordinate and disregarded things;
3. That it has at its disposal the earliest
impressions of our childhood, and brings to light
details from this period of life, which, again, seem

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 369trivial to us, and which in waking life were believed
to have been long since forgotten.[1]
These peculiarities in the dream's choice of
material have, of course, been observed by previous
writers in the manifest dream- content.
A. Recent and Indifferent Impressions
in the Dream
If I now consult my own experience with
regard to the origin of the elements appearing in the
dream-content, I must in the first place express the
opinion that in every dream we may find some
reference to the experiences of the preceding day.
Whatever dream I turn to, whether my own or
someone else's, this experience is always confirmed.
Knowing this, I may perhaps begin the work of
interpretation by looking for the experience of the
preceding day which has stimulated the dream; inmany cases this is indeed the quickest way. With the
two dreams which I subjected to a close analysis in
the last chapter (the dreams of Irma's injection, and
of the uncle with the yellow beard) the reference to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 370the preceding day is so evident that it needs no
further elucidation. But in order to show how
constantly this reference may be demonstrated, I
shall examine a portion of my own dream- chronicle,
I shall relate only so much of the dreams as is
necessary for the detection of the dream-source in
question.
1. I pay a call at a house to which I gain
admittance only with difficulty, etc., and meanwhileI am keeping a woman waiting for me.
Source: A conversation during the evening
with a female relative to the effect that she would
have to wait for a remittance for which she had
asked, until… etc.
2. I have written a monograph on a species
(uncertain) of plant.
Source: In the morning I had seen in a
bookseller's window a monograph on the genus
Cyclamen.
3. I see two women in the street, mother
and daughter, the latter being a patient.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 371Source: A female patient who is under
treatment had told me in the evening what
difficulties her mother puts in the way of her
continuing the treatment.
4. At S and R's bookshop I subscribe to a
periodical which costs 20 florins annually.
Source: During the day my wife has
reminded me that I still owe her 20 florins of her
weekly allowance.
5. I receive a communication from the Social
Democratic Committee, in which I am addressed as
a member.
Source: I have received simultaneous
communications from the Liberal Committee on
Elections and from the president of the
Humanitarian Society, of which latter I am actually a
member.
6. A man on a steep rock rising from the
sea, in the manner of Bocklin.
Source: Dreyfus on Devil's Island; also news
from my relatives in England, etc.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 372The question might be raised, whether a
dream invariably refers to the events of the
preceding day only, or whether the reference may
be extended to include impressions from a longer
period of time in the immediate past. This question
is probably not of the first importance, but I am
inclined to decide in favour of the exclusive priority
of the day before the dream (the dream-day).
Whenever I thought I had found a case where animpression two or three days old was the source of
the dream, I was able to convince myself after
careful investigation that this impression had been
remembered the day before; that is, that a
demonstrable reproduction on the day before had
been interpolated between the day of the event and
the time of the dream; and further, I was able to
point to the recent occasion which might have given
rise to the recollection of the older impression. On
the other hand, I was unable to convince myself that
a regular interval of biological significance (H.Swoboda gives the first interval of this kind as

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 373eighteen hours) elapses between the dream-exciting
daytime impression and its recurrence in the dream.
I believe, therefore, that for every dream a
dream-stimulus may be found among these
experiences "on which one has not yet slept."
Havelock Ellis, who has likewise given
attention to this problem, states that he has not
been able to find any such periodicity of
reproduction in his dreams, although he has lookedfor it. He relates a dream in which he found himself
in Spain; he wanted to travel to a place called
Daraus, Varaus, or Zaraus. On awaking he was
unable to recall any such place-names, and thought
no more of the matter. A few months later he
actually found the name Zaraus; it was that of a
railway-station between San Sebastian and Bilbao,
through which he had passed in the train eight
months (250 days) before the date of the dream.
Thus the impressions of the immediate past
(with the exception of the day before the night ofthe dream) stand in the same relation to the dream-

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 374content as those of periods indefinitely remote. The
dream may select its material from any period of
life, provided only that a chain of thought leads back
from the experiences of the day of the dream (the
recent impressions) of that earlier period.
But why this preference for recent
impressions? We shall arrive at some conjectures on
this point if we subject one of the dreams already
mentioned to a more precise analysis. I select the
Dream of the Botanical Monograph
I have written a monograph on a certain
plant. The book lies before me; I am just turning
over a folded coloured plate. A dried specimen of the
plant, as though from a herbarium, is bound up with
every copy.
Analysis
In the morning I saw in a bookseller's
window a volume entitled The Genus Cyclamen,
apparently a monograph on this plant.
The cyclamen is my wife's favorite flower. I
reproach myself for remembering so seldom to bring

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 375h e r f l o w e r s , a s s h e w o u l d l i k e m e t o d o . I n
connection with the theme of giving her flowers, I
am reminded of a story which I recently told some
friends of mine in proof of my assertion that we
often forget in obedience to a purpose of the
unconscious, and that forgetfulness always enables
us to form a deduction about the secret disposition
of the forgetful person. A young woman who has
been accustomed to receive a bouquet of flowersfrom her husband on her birthday misses this token
of affection on one of her birthdays, and bursts into
tears. The husband comes in, and cannot
understand why she is crying until she tells him:
"Today is my birthday." He claps his hand to his
forehead, and exclaims: "Oh, forgive me, I had
completely forgotten it!" and proposes to go out
immediately in order to get her flowers. But she
refuses to be consoled, for she sees in her husband's
forgetfulness a proof that she no longer plays the
same part in his thoughts as she formerly did. ThisFrau L met my wife two days ago, told her that she

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 376was feeling well, and asked after me. Some years
ago she was a patient of mine.
Supplementary facts: I did once actually
write something like a monograph on a plant,
namely, an essay on the coca plant, which attracted
the attention of K. Koller to the anaesthetic
properties of cocaine. I had hinted that the alkaloid
might be employed as an anaesthetic, but I was not
thorough enough to pursue the matter farther. Itoccurs to me, too, that on the morning of the day
following the dream (for the interpretation of which I
did not find time until the evening) I had thought of
cocaine in a kind of day-dream. If I were ever
afflicted with glaucoma, I would go to Berlin, and
there undergo an operation, incognito, in the house
of my Berlin friend, at the hands of a surgeon whom
he would recommend. The surgeon, who would not
know the name of his patient, would boast, as usual,
how easy these operations had become since the
introduction of cocaine; and I should not betray thefact that I myself had a share in this discovery. With

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 377this phantasy were connected thoughts of how
awkward it really is for a physician to claim the
professional services of a colleague. I should be able
to pay the Berlin eye specialist, who did not know
me, like anyone else. Only after recalling this day-
dream do I realize that there is concealed behind it
the memory of a definite event. Shortly after Koller's
discovery, my father contracted glaucoma; he was
operated on by my friend Dr. Koenigstein, the eyespecialist. Dr. Koller was in charge of the cocaine
anaesthetization, and he made the remark that on
this occasion all the three persons who had been
responsible for the introduction of cocaine had been
brought together.
My thoughts now pass on to the time when I
was last reminded of the history of cocaine. This was
a few days earlier, when I received a Festschrift, a
publication in which grateful pupils had
commemorated the jubilee of their teacher and
laboratory director. Among the titles to fame ofpersons connected with the laboratory I found a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 378note to the effect that the discovery of the
anaesthetic properties of cocaine had been due to K.
Koller. Now I suddenly become aware that the
dream is connected with an experience of the
previous evening. I had just accompanied Dr.
Koenigstein to his home, and had entered into a
discussion of a subject which excites me greatly
whenever it is mentioned. While I was talking with
him in the entrance-hall Professor Gartner and hisyoung wife came up. I could not refrain from
congratulating them both upon their blooming
appearance. Now Professor Gartner is one of the
authors of the Festschrift of which I have just
spoken, and he may well have reminded me of it.
And Frau L, of whose birthday disappointment I
spoke a little way back, had been mentioned,
though of course in another connection, in my
conversation with Dr. Koenigstein.
I shall now try to elucidate the other
determinants of the dream- content. A driedspecimen of the plant accompanies the monograph,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 379as though it were a herbarium. And herbarium
reminds me of the Gymnasium. The director of our
Gymnasium once called the pupils of the upper
classes together, in order that they might examine
and clean the Gymnasium herbarium. Small insects
had been found- book-worms. The director seemed
to have little confidence in my ability to assist, for
he entrusted me with only a few of the pages. I
know to this day that there were crucifers on them.My interest in botany was never very great. At my
preliminary examination in botany I was required to
identify a crucifer, and failed to recognize it; had not
my theoretical knowledge come to my aid, I should
have fared badly indeed. Crucifers suggest
composites. The artichoke is really a composite, and
in actual fact one which I might call my favourite
flower. My wife, more thoughtful than I, often brings
this favourite flower of mine home from the market.
I see the monograph which I have written
lying before me. Here again there is an association.My friend wrote to me yesterday from Berlin: "I am

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 380thinking a great deal about your dream-book. I see
it lying before me, completed, and I turn the pages."
How I envied him this power of vision! If only I could
see it lying before me, already completed!
The folded coloured plate. When I was a
medical student I suffered a sort of craze for
studying monographs exclusively. In spite of my
limited means, I subscribed to a number of the
medical periodicals, whose coloured plates affordedme much delight. I was rather proud of this
inclination to thoroughness. When I subsequently
began to publish books myself, I had to draw the
plates for my own treatises, and I remember one of
them turned out so badly that a well-meaning
colleague ridiculed me for it. With this is associated,
I do not exactly know how, a very early memory of
my childhood. My father, by the way of a jest, once
gave my elder sister and myself a book containing
coloured plates (the book was a narrative of a
journey through Persia) in order that we mightdestroy it. From an educational point of view this

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 381was hardly to be commended. I was at the time five
years old, and my sister less than three, and the
picture of us two children blissfully tearing the book
to pieces (I should add, like an artichoke, leaf by
leaf), is almost the only one from this period of my
life which has remained vivid in my memory. When I
afterwards became a student, I developed a
conspicuous fondness for collecting and possessing
books (an analogy to the inclination for studyingfrom monographs, a hobby alluded to in my dream-
thoughts, in connection with cyclamen and
artichoke). I became a book-worm (cf. herbarium).
Ever since I have been engaged in introspection I
have always traced this earliest passion of my life to
this impression of my childhood: or rather, I have
recognized in this childish scene a screen or
concealing memory for my subsequent
bibliophilia.[2] And of course I learned at an early
age that our passions often become our misfortunes.
When I was seventeen, I ran up a very considerableaccount at the bookseller's, with no means with

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 382which to settle it, and my father would hardly accept
it as an excuse that my passion was at least a
respectable one. But the mention of this experience
of my youth brings me back to my conversation with
my friend Dr. Koenigstein on the evening preceding
the dream; for one of the themes of this
conversation was the same old reproach- that I am
much too absorbed in my hobbies.
For reasons which are not relevant here I
shall not continue the interpretation of this dream,
but will merely indicate the path which leads to it. In
the course of the interpretation I was reminded of
my conversation with Dr. Koenigstein, and, indeed,
of more than one portion of it. When I consider the
subjects touched upon in this conversation, the
meaning of the dream immediately becomes clear to
me. All the trains of thought which have been
started- my own inclinations, and those of my wife,
the cocaine, the awkwardness of securing medical
treatment from one's own colleagues, my preferencefor monographical studies, and my neglect of certain

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 383subjects, such as botany- all these are continued in
and lead up to one branch or another of this widely-
ramified conversation. The dream once more
assumes the character of a justification, of a plea for
my rights (like the dream of Irma's injection, the
first to be analysed); it even continues the theme
which that dream introduced, and discusses it in
association with the new subject-matter which has
been added in the interval between the two dreams.Even the dream's apparently indifferent form of
expression at once acquires a meaning. Now it
means: "I am indeed the man who has written that
valuable and successful treatise (on cocaine)," just
as previously I declared in self-justification: "I am
after all a thorough and industrious student"; and in
both instances I find the meaning: "I can allow
myself this." But I may dispense with the further
interpretation of the dream, because my only
purpose in recording it was to examine the relation
of the dream-content to the experience of theprevious day which arouses it. As long as I know

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 384only the manifest content of this dream, only one
relation to any impression of the day is obvious; but
after I have completed the interpretation, a second
source of the dream becomes apparent in another
experience of the same day. The first of these
impressions to which the dream refers is an
indifferent one, a subordinate circumstance. I see a
book in a shop window whose title holds me for a
moment, but whose contents would hardly interestme. The second experience was of great psychic
value; I talked earnestly with my friend, the eye
specialist, for about an hour; I made allusions in this
conversation which must have ruffled the feelings of
both of us, and which in me awakened memories in
connection with which I was aware of a great variety
of inner stimuli. Further, this conversation was
broken off unfinished, because some acquaintances
joined us. What, now, is the relation of these two
impressions of the day to one another, and to the
dream which followed during the night?

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 385In the manifest dream-content I find merely
an allusion to the indifferent impression, and I am
thus able to reaffirm that the dream prefers to take
up into its content experiences of a non- essential
character. In the dream-interpretation, on the
contrary, everything converges upon the important
and justifiably disturbing event. If I judge the sense
of the dream in the only correct way, according to
the latent content which is brought to light in theanalysis, I find that I have unwittingly lighted upon a
new and important discovery. I see that the puzzling
theory that the dream deals only with the worthless
odds and ends of the day's experiences has no
justification; I am also compelled to contradict the
assertion that the psychic life of the waking state is
not continued in the dream, and that hence, the
dream wastes our psychic energy on trivial material.
The very opposite is true; what has claimed our
attention during the day dominates our dream-
thoughts also, and we take pains to dream only in

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 386connection with such matters as have given us food
for thought during the day.
Perhaps the most immediate explanation of
the fact that I dream of the indifferent impression of
the day, while the impression which has with good
reason excited me causes me to dream, is that here
again we are dealing with the phenomenon of
dream- distortion, which we have referred to as a
psychic force playing the part of a censorship. Therecollection of the monograph on the genus
cyclamen is utilized as though it were an allusion to
the conversation with my friend, just as the mention
of my patient's friend in the dream of the deferred
supper is represented by the allusion smoked
salmon. The only question is: by what intermediate
links can the impression of the monograph come to
assume the relation of allusion to the conversation
with the eye specialist, since such a relation is not at
first perceptible? In the example of the deferred
supper, the relation is evident at the outset; smokedsalmon, as the favourite dish of the patient's friend,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 387belongs to the circle of ideas which the friend's
personality would naturally evoke in the mind of the
dreamer. In our new example we are dealing with
two entirely separate impressions, which at first
glance seem to have nothing in common, except
indeed that they occur on the same day. The
monograph attracts my attention in the morning: in
the evening I take part in the conversation. The
answer furnished by the analysis is as follows: Suchrelations between the two impressions as do not
exist from the first are established subsequently
between the idea-content of the one impression and
the idea-content of the other. I have already picked
out the intermediate links emphasized in the course
of writing the analysis. Only under some outside
influence, perhaps the recollection of the flowers
missed by Frau L, would the idea of the monograph
on the cyclamen have attached itself to the idea that
the cyclamen is my wife's favourite flower. I do not
believe that these inconspicuous thoughts wouldhave sufficed to evoke a dream.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 388There needs no ghost, my lord, come from
the grave
To tell us this,
as we read in Hamlet. But behold! in the
analysis I am reminded that the name of the man
who interrupted our conversation was Gartner
(gardener), and that I thought his wife looked
blooming; indeed, now I even remember that one of
my female patients, who bears the pretty name ofFlora, was for a time the main subject of our
conversation. It must have happened that by means
of these intermediate links from the sphere of
botanical ideas the association was effected between
the two events of the day, the indifferent one and
the stimulating one. Other relations were then
established, that of cocaine for example, which can
with perfect appropriateness form a link between the
person of Dr. Koenigstein and the botanical
monograph which I have written, and thus secure
the fusion of the two circles of ideas, so that now a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 389portion of the first experience may be used as an
allusion to the second.
I am prepared to find this explanation
attacked as either arbitrary or artificial. What would
have happened if Professor Gartner and his
blooming wife had not appeared, and if the patient
who was under discussion had been called, not
Flora, but Anna? And yet the answer is not hard to
find. If these thought- relations had not beenavailable, others would probably have been selected.
It is easy to establish relations of this sort, as the
jocular questions and conundrums with which we
amuse ourselves suffice to show. The range of wit is
unlimited. To go a step farther: if no sufficiently
fertile associations between the two impressions of
the day could have been established, the dream
would simply have followed a different course;
another of the indifferent impressions of the day,
such as come to us in multitudes and are forgotten,
would have taken the place of the monograph in thedream, would have formed an association with the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 390content of the conversation, and would have
represented this in the dream. Since it was the
impression of the monograph and no other that was
fated to perform this function, this impression was
probably that most suitable for the purpose. One
need not, like Lessing's Hanschen Schlau, be
astonished that "only the rich people of the world
possess the most money."
Still the psychological process by which,
according to our exposition, the indifferent
experience substitutes itself for the psychologically
important one seems to us odd and open to
question. In a later chapter we shall undertake the
task of making the peculiarities of this seemingly
incorrect operation more intelligible. Here we are
concerned only with the result of this process, which
we were compelled to accept by constantly recurring
experiences in the analysis of dreams. In this
process it is as though, in the course of the
intermediate steps, a displacement occurs- let ussay, of the psychic accent- until ideas of feeble

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 391potential, by taking over the charge from ideas
which have a stronger initial potential, reach a
degree of intensity which enables them to force their
way into consciousness. Such displacements do not
in the least surprise us when it is a question of the
transference of affective magnitudes or of motor
activities. That the lonely spinster transfers her
affection to animals, that the bachelor becomes a
passionate collector, that the soldier defends a scrapof coloured cloth- his flag- with his life-blood, that in
a love-affair a clasp of the hands a moment longer
than usual evokes a sensation of bliss, or that in
Othello a lost handkerchief causes an outburst of
rage- all these are examples of psychic
displacements which to us seem incontestable. But
if, by the same means, and in accordance with the
same fundamental principles, a decision is made as
to what is to reach our consciousness and what is to
be withheld from it- that is to say, what we are to
think- this gives us the impression of morbidity, andif it occurs in waking life we call it an error of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 392thought. We may here anticipate the result of a
discussion which will be undertaken later, namely,
that the psychic process which we have recognized
in dream-displacement proves to be not a morbidly
deranged process, but one merely differing from the
normal, one of a more primary nature.
Thus we interpret the fact that the dream-
content takes up remnants of trivial experiences as
a manifestation of dream- distortion (bydisplacement), and we thereupon remember that we
have recognized this dream-distortion as the work of
a censorship operating between the two psychic
instances. We may therefore expect that dream-
analysis will constantly show us the real and
psychically significant source of the dream in the
events of the day, the memory of which has
transferred its accentuation to some indifferent
memory. This conception is in complete opposition
to Robert's theory, which consequently has no
further value for us. The fact which Robert wastrying to explain simply does not exist; its

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 393assumption is based on a misunderstanding, on a
failure to substitute the real meaning of the dream
for its apparent meaning. A further objection to
Robert's doctrine is as follows: If the task of the
dream were really to rid our memory, by means of a
special psychic activity, of the slag of the day's
recollections, our sleep would perforce be more
troubled, engaged in more strenuous work, than we
can suppose it to be, judging by our wakingthoughts. For the number of the indifferent
impressions of the day against which we should
have to protect our memory is obviously
immeasurably large; the whole night would not be
long enough to dispose of them all. It is far more
probable that the forgetting of the indifferent
impressions takes place without any active
interference on the part of our psychic powers.
Still, something cautions us against taking
leave of Robert's theory without further
consideration. We have left unexplained the fact thatone of the indifferent impressions of the day-

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 394indeed, even of the previous day- constantly makes
a contribution to the dream-content. The relations
between this impression and the real source of the
dream in the unconscious do not always exist from
the outset; as we have seen, they are established
subsequently, while the dream is actually at work,
as though to serve the purpose of the intended
displacement. Something, therefore, must
necessitate the opening up of connections in thedirection of the recent but indifferent impression;
this impression must possess some quality that
gives it a special fitness. Otherwise it would be just
as easy for the dream- thoughts to shift their
accentuation to some inessential component of their
own sphere of ideas.
Experiences such as the following show us
the way to an explanation: If the day has brought us
two or more experiences which are worthy to evoke
a dream, the dream will blend the allusion of both
into a single whole: it obeys a compulsion to makethem into a single whole. For example: One summer

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 395afternoon I entered a railway carriage in which I
found two acquaintances of mine who were unknown
to one another. One of them was an influential
colleague, the other a member of a distinguished
family which I had been attending in my professional
capacity. I introduced the two gentlemen to each
other; but during the long journey they conversed
with each other through me, so that I had to discuss
this or that topic now with one, now with the other.I asked my colleague to recommend a mutual
acquaintance who had just begun to practise as a
physician. He replied that he was convinced of the
young man's ability, but that his undistinguished
appearance would make it difficult for him to obtain
patients in the upper ranks of society. To this I
rejoined: "That is precisely why he needs
recommendation." A little later, turning to my other
fellow-traveller, I inquired after the health of his
aunt- the mother of one of my patients- who was at
this time prostrated by a serious illness. On thenight following this journey I dreamt that the young

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 396friend whom I had asked one of my companions to
recommend was in a fashionable drawing-room, and
with all the bearing of a man of the world was
making- before a distinguished company, in which I
recognized all the rich and aristocratic persons of my
acquaintance- a funeral oration over the old lady
(who in my dream had already died) who was the
aunt of my second fellow- traveller. (I confess
frankly that I had not been on good terms with thislady.) Thus my dream had once more found the
connection between the two impressions of the day,
and by means of the two had constructed a unified
situation.
In view of many similar experiences, I am
persuaded to advance the proposition that a dream
works under a kind of compulsion which forces it to
combine into a unified whole all the sources of
dream-stimulation which are offered to it.[3] In a
subsequent chapter (on the function of dreams) we
shall consider this impulse of combination as part of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 397the process of condensation, another primary
psychic process.
I shall now consider the question whether
the dream-exciting source to which our analysis
leads us must always be a recent (and significant)
event, or whether a subjective experience- that is to
say, the recollection of a psychologically significant
event, a train of thought- may assume the role of a
dream- stimulus. The very definite answer, derivedfrom numerous analyses, is as follows: The stimulus
of the dream may be a subjective transaction, which
has been made recent, as it were, by the mental
activity of the day.
And this is perhaps the best time to
summarize in schematic form the different
conditions under which the dream-sources are
operative.
The source of a dream may be:
(a) A recent and psychologically significant
event which is directly represented in the dream.[4]

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 398(b) Several recent and significant events,
which are combined by the dream in a single
whole.[5]
(c) One or more recent and significant
events, which are represented in the dream-content
by allusion to a contemporary but indifferent
event.[6]
(d) A subjectively significant experience
(recollection, train of thought), which is constantlyrepresented in the dream by allusion to a recent but
indifferent impression.[7]
As may be seen, in dream-interpretation the
condition is always fulfilled that one component of
the dream-content repeats a recent impression of
the day of the dream. The component which is
destined to be represented in the dream may either
belong to the same circle of ideas as the dream-
stimulus itself (as an essential or even an inessential
element of the same); or it may originate in the
neighbourhood of an indifferent impression, whichhas been brought by more or less abundant

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 399associations into relation with the sphere of the
dream-stimulus. The apparent multiplicity of these
conditions results merely from the alternative, that a
displacement has or has not occurred, and it may
here be noted that this alternative enables us to
explain the contrasts of the dream quite as readily
as the medical theory of the dream explains the
series of states from the partial to the complete
waking of the brain cells.
In considering this series of sources we note
further that the psychologically significant but not
recent element (a train of thought, a recollection)
may be replaced for the purposes of dream-
formation by a recent but psychologically indifferent
element, provided the two following conditions are
fulfilled: (1) the dream-content preserves a
connection with things recently experienced; (2) the
dream-stimulus is still a psychologically significant
event. In one single case (a) both these conditions
are fulfilled by the same impression. If we nowconsider that these same indifferent impressions,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 400which are utilized for the dream as long as they are
recent, lose this qualification as soon as they are a
day (or at most several days) older, we are obliged
to assume that the very freshness of an impression
gives it a certain psychological value for dream-
formation, somewhat equivalent to the value of
emotionally accentuated memories or trains of
thought. Later on, in the light of certain
Psychological considerations, we shall be able todivine the explanation of this importance of recent
impressions in dream formation.[8]
Incidentally our attention is here called to
the fact that at night, and unnoticed by our
consciousness, important changes may occur in the
material comprised by our ideas and memories. The
injunction that before making a final decision in any
matter one should sleep on it for a night is obviously
fully justified. But at this point we find that we have
passed from the psychology of dreaming to the
psychology of sleep, a step which there will often beoccasion to take.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 401At this point there arises an objection which
threatens to invalidate the conclusions at which we
have just arrived. If indifferent impressions can find
their way into the dream only so long as they are of
recent origin, how does it happen that in the dream-
content we find elements also from earlier periods of
our lives, which, at the time when they were still
recent, possessed, as Strumpell puts it, no psychic
value, and which, therefore, ought to have beenforgotten long ago; elements, that is, which are
neither fresh nor psychologically significant?
This objection can be disposed of completely
if we have recourse to the results of the
psychoanalysis of neurotics. The solution is as
follows: The process of shifting and rearrangement
which replaces material of psychic significance by
material which is indifferent (whether one is
dreaming or thinking) has already taken place in
these earlier periods of life, and has since become
fixed in the memory. Those elements which wereoriginally indifferent are in fact no longer so, since

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 402they have acquired the value of psychologically
significant material. That which has actually
remained indifferent can never be reproduced in the
dream.
From the foregoing exposition the reader
may rightly conclude that I assert that there are no
indifferent dream-stimuli, and therefore no guileless
dreams. This I absolutely and unconditionally believe
to be the case, apart from the dreams of children,and perhaps the brief dream-reactions to nocturnal
sensations. Apart from these exceptions, whatever
one dreams is either plainly recognizable as being
psychically significant, or it is distorted and can be
judged correctly only after complete interpretation,
when it proves, after all, to be of psychic
significance. The dream never concerns itself with
trifles; we do not allow sleep to be disturbed by
trivialities.[9] Dreams which are apparently guileless
turn out to be the reverse of innocent, if one takes
the trouble to interpret them; if I may be permittedthe expression, they ail show "the mark of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 403beast." Since this is another point on which I may
expect contradiction, and since I am glad of an
opportunity to show dream-distortion at work, I
shall here subject to analysis a number of guileless
dreams from my collection.
I.
An intelligent and refined young woman,
who in real life is distinctly reserved, one of those
people of whom one says that "still waters rundeep," relates the following dream: "I dreamt that I
arrived at the market too late, and could get nothing
from either the butcher or the greengrocer woman."
Surely a guileless dream, but as it has not the
appearance of a real dream I induce her to relate it
in detail. Her report then runs as follows: She goes
to the market with her cook, who carries the basket.
The butcher tells her, after she has asked him for
something: "That is no longer to be obtained," and
waits to give her something else, with the remark:
"That is good, too." She refuses, and goes to thegreengrocer woman. The latter tries to sell her a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 404peculiar vegetable, which is bound up in bundles,
and is black in colour. She says: "I don't know that,
I won't take it."
The connection of the dream with the
preceding day is simple enough. She had really gone
to the market too late, and had been unable to buy
anything. The meatshop was already closed, comes
into one's mind as a description of the experience.
But wait, is not that a very vulgar phrase which- orrather, the opposite of which- denotes a certain
neglect with regard to man's clothing? The dreamer
has not used these words; she has perhaps avoided
them: but let us look for the interpretation of the
details contained in the dream.
When in a dream something has the
character of a spoken utterance- that is, when it is
said or heard, not merely thought, and the
distinction can usually be made with certainty- then
it originates in the utterances of waking life, which
have, of course, been treated as raw material,dismembered, and slightly altered, and above all

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 405removed from their context.[10] In the work of
interpretation we may take such utterances as our
starting- point. Where, then, does the butcher's
statement, That is no longer to be obtained, come
from? From myself; I had explained to her some
days previously "that the oldest experiences of
childhood are no longer to be obtained as such, but
will be replaced in the analysis by transferences and
dreams." Thus, I am the butcher, and she refuses toaccept these transferences to the present of old
ways of thinking and feeling. Where does her dream
utterance, I don't know that, I won't take it, come
from? For the purposes of the analysis this has to be
dissected. I don't know that she herself had said to
her cook, with whom she had a dispute on the
previous day, but she had then added: Behave
yourself decently. Here a displacement is palpable;
of the two sentences which she spoke to her cook,
she included the insignificant one in her dream; but
the suppressed sentence, Behave yourself decently!alone fits in with the rest of the dream-content. One

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 406might use the words to a man who was making
indecent overtures, and had neglected "to close his
meat-shop." That we have really hit upon the trail of
the interpretation is proved by its agreement with
the allusions made by the incident with the
greengrocer woman. A vegetable which is sold tied
up in bundles (a longish vegetable, as she
subsequently adds), and is also black: what can this
be but a dream-combination of asparagus and blackradish? I need not interpret asparagus to the
initiated; and the other vegetable, too (think of the
exclamation: "Blacky, save yourself!"), seems to me
to point to the sexual theme at which we guessed in
the beginning, when we wanted to replace the story
of the dream by "the meat-shop is closed." We are
not here concerned with the full meaning of the
dream; so much is certain, that it is full of meaning
and by no means guileless.[11]
II.
Another guileless dream of the same patient,
which in some respects is a pendant to the above.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 407Her husband asks her: "Oughtn't we to have the
piano tuned?" She replies: "It's not worth while, the
hammers would have to be rebuffed as well." Again
we have the reproduction of an actual event of the
preceding day. Her husband had asked her such a
question, and she had answered it in such words.
But what is the meaning of her dreaming it? She
says of the piano that it is a disgusting old box
which has a bad tone; it belonged to her husbandbefore they were married,[12] etc., but the key to
the true solution lies in the phrase: It isn't worth
while. This has its origin in a call paid yesterday to a
woman friend. She was asked to take off her coat,
but declined, saying: "Thanks, it isn't worth while, I
must go in a moment." At this point I recall that
yesterday, during the analysis, she suddenly took
hold of her coat, of which a button had come
undone. It was as though she meant to say: "Please
don't look in, it isn't worth while." Thus box becomes
chest, and the interpretation of the dream leads tothe years when she was growing out of her

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 408childhood, when she began to be dissatisfied with
her figure. It leads us back, indeed, to earlier
periods, if we take into consideration the disgusting
and the bad tone, and remember how often in
allusions and in dreams the two small hemispheres
of the female body take the place- as a substitute
and an antithesis- of the large ones.
III.
I will interrupt the analysis of this dreamer
in order to insert a short, innocent dream which was
dreamed by a young man. He dreamt that he was
putting on his winter overcoat again; this was
terrible. The occasion for this dream is apparently
the sudden advent of cold weather. On more careful
examination we note that the two brief fragments of
the dream do not fit together very well, for what
could be terrible about wearing a thick or heavy coat
in cold weather? Unfortunately for the innocency of
this dream, the first association, under analysis,
yields the recollection that yesterday a lady hadconfidentially confessed to him that her last child

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 409owed its existence to the splitting of a condom. He
now reconstructs his thoughts in accordance with
this suggestion: A thin condom is dangerous, a thick
one is bad. The condom is a "pullover" (Ueberzieher
= literally pullover), for it is pulled over something:
and Uebersieher is the German term for a light
overcoat. An experience like that related by the lady
would indeed be terrible for an unmarried man.
We will now return to our other innocent
dreamer.
IV.
She puts a candle into a candlestick; but the
candle is broken, so that it does not stand up. The
girls at school say she is clumsy; but she replies that
it is not her fault.
Here, too, there is an actual occasion for the
dream; the day before she had actually put a candle
into a candlestick; but this one was not broken. An
obvious symbolism has here been employed. The
candle is an object which excites the femalegenitals; its being broken, so that it does not stand

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 410upright, signifies impotence on the man's part (it is
not her fault). But does this young woman, carefully
brought up, and a stranger to all obscenity, know of
such an application of the candle? By chance she is
able to tell how she came by this information. While
paddling a canoe on the Rhine, a boat passed her
which contained some students, who were singing
rapturously, or rather yelling: "When the Queen of
Sweden, behind closed shutters, with the candles ofApollo…"
She does not hear or else understand the
last word. Her husband was asked to give her the
required explanation. These verses are then
replaced in the dream-content by the innocent
recollection of a task which she once performed
clumsily at her boarding- school, because of the
closed shutters. The connection between the theme
of masturbation and that of impotence is clear
enough. Apollo in the latent dream-content connects
this dream with an earlier one in which the virginPallas figured. All this is obviously not innocent.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 411V.
Lest it may seem too easy a matter to draw
conclusions from dreams concerning the dreamer's
real circumstances, I add another dream originating
with the same person, which once more appears
innocent. "I dreamt of doing something," she
relates, "which I actually did during the day, that is
t o s a y , I f i l l e d a l i t t l e t r u n k s o f u l l o f b o o k s t h a t I
had difficulty in closing it. My dream was just likethe actual occurrence." Here the dreamer herself
emphasizes the correspondence between the dream
and the reality. All such criticisms of the dream, and
comments on the dream, although they have found
a place in the waking thoughts, properly belong to
the latent dream-content, as further examples will
confirm. We are told, then, that what the dream
relates has actually occurred during the day. It
would take us too far afield to show how we arrive
at the idea of making use of the English language to
help us in the interpretation of this dream. Suffice itto say that it is again a question of a little box (cf.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 412chap. IV, the dream of the dead child in the box)
which has been filled so full that nothing can go into
it.
In all these "innocent" dreams the sexual
factor as the motive of the censorship is very
prominent. But this is a subject of primary
significance, which we must consider later.
B. Infantile Experiences as the Source
of Dreams
As the third of the peculiarities of the
dream-content, we have adduced the fact, in
agreement with all other writers on the subject
(excepting Robert), that impressions from our
childhood may appear in dreams, which do not seem
to be at the disposal of the waking memory. It is, of
course, difficult to decide how seldom or how
frequently this occurs, because after waking theorigin of the respective elements of the dream is not
recognized. The proof that we are dealing with
impressions of our childhood must thus be adduced
objectively, and only in rare instances do the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 413conditions favour such proof. The story is told by A.
Maury, as being particularly conclusive, of a man
who decides to visit his birthplace after an absence
of twenty years. On the night before his departure
he dreams that he is in a totally unfamiliar locality,
and that he there meets a strange man with whom
he holds a conversation. Subsequently, upon his
return home, he is able to convince himself that this
strange locality really exists in the vicinity of hishome, and the strange man in the dream turns out
to be a friend of his dead father's, who is living in
the town. This is, of course, a conclusive proof that
in his childhood he had seen both the man and the
locality. The dream, moreover, is to be interpreted
as a dream of impatience, like the dream of the girl
who carries in her pocket the ticket for a concert,
the dream of the child whose father had promised
him an excursion to the Hameau (ch. III), and so
forth. The motives which reproduce just these
impressions of childhood for the dreamer cannot, ofcourse, be discovered without analysis.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 414One of my colleagues, who attended my
lectures, and who boasted that his dreams were
very rarely subject to distortion, told me that he had
sometime previously seen, in a dream, his former
tutor in bed with his nurse, who had remained in the
household until his eleventh year. The actual
location of this scene was realized even in the
dream. As he was greatly interested, he related the
dream to his elder brother, who laughinglyconfirmed its reality. The brother said that he
remembered the affair very distinctly, for he was six
years old at the time. The lovers were in the habit of
making him, the elder boy, drunk with beer
whenever circumstances were favourable to their
nocturnal intercourse. The younger child, our
dreamer, at that time three years of age, slept in
the same room as the nurse, but was not regarded
as an obstacle.
In yet another case it may be definitely
established, without the aid of dream-interpretation,that the dream contains elements from childhood-

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 415namely, if the dream is a so-called perennial dream,
one which, being first dreamt in childhood, recurs
again and again in adult years. I may add a few
examples of this sort to those already known,
although I have no personal knowledge of perennial
dreams. A physician, in his thirties, tells me that a
yellow lion, concerning which he is able to give the
precisest information, has often appeared in his
dream-life, from his earliest childhood up to thepresent day. This lion, known to him from his
dreams, was one day discovered in natura, as a
longforgotten china animal. The young man then
learned from his mother that the lion had been his
favourite toy in early childhood, a fact which he
himself could no longer remember.
If we now turn from the manifest dream-
content to the dreamthoughts which are revealed
only on analysis, the experiences of childhood may
be found to recur even in dreams whose content
would not have led us to suspect anything of the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 416sort. I owe a particularly delightful and instructive
example of such a dream
to my esteemed colleague of the "yellow
lion." After reading Nansen's account of his polar
expedition, he dreamt that he was giving the
intrepid explorer electrical treatment on an ice-floe
for the sciatica of which the latter complained!
During the analysis of this dream he remembered an
incident of his childhood, without which the dreamwould be wholly unintelligible. When he was three or
four years of age he was one day listening
attentively to the conversation of his elders; they
were talking of exploration, and he presently asked
his father whether exploration was a bad illness. He
had apparently confounded Reisen (journey, trips)
with Reissen (gripes, tearing pains), and the derision
of his brothers and sisters prevented his ever
forgetting the humiliating experience.
We have a precisely similar case when, in
the analysis of the dream of the monograph on thegenus cyclamen, I stumble upon a memory, retained

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 417from childhood, to the effect that when I was five
years old my father allowed me to destroy a book
embellished with coloured plates. It will perhaps be
doubted whether this recollection really entered into
the composition of the dream content, and it may be
suggested that the connection was established
subsequently by the analysis. But the abundance
and intricacy of the associative connections vouch
for the truth of my explanation: cyclamen- favouriteflower- favourite dish- artichoke; to pick to pieces
like an artichoke, leaf by leaf (a phrase which at that
time one heard daily, a propos of the dividing up of
the Chinese empire); herbarium- bookworm, whose
favourite food is books. I can further assure the
reader that the ultimate meaning of the dream,
which I have not given here, is most intimately
connected with the content of the scene of childish
destruction.
In another series of dreams we learn from
analysis that the very wish which has given rise tothe dream, and whose fulfilment the dream proves

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 418to be, has itself originated in childhood, so that one
is astonished to find that the child with all his
impulses survives in the dream.
I shall now continue the interpretation of a
dream which has already proved instructive: I refer
to the dream in which my friend R is my uncle. We
have carried its interpretation far enough for the
wish-motive- the wish to be appointed professor- to
assert itself palpably; and we have explained theaffection felt for my friend R in the dream as the
outcome of opposition to, and defiance of, the two
colleagues who appear in the dreamthoughts. Thee
dream was my own; I may, therefore, continue the
analysis by stating that I did not feel quite satisfied
with the solution arrived at. I knew that my opinion
of these colleagues. who were so badly treated in
my dream-thoughts, would have been expressed in
very different language in my waking life; the
intensity of the wish that I might not share their fate
as regards the appointment seemed to me too slightfully to account for the discrepancy between my

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 419dream- opinion and my waking opinion. If the desire
to be addressed by another title were really so
intense, it would be proof of a morbid ambition,
which I do not think I cherish, and which I believe I
was far from entertaining. I do not know how others
who think they know me would judge me; perhaps I
really was ambitious; but if I was, my ambition has
long since been transferred to objects other than the
rank and title of Professor extraordinarius.
Whence, then, the ambition which the
dream has ascribed to me? Here I am reminded of a
story which I heard often in my childhood, that at
my birth an old peasant woman had prophesied to
my happy mother (whose first-born I was) that she
had brought a great man into the world. Such
prophecies must be made very
frequently; there are so many happy and
expectant mothers, and so many old peasant
women, and other old women who, since their
mundane powers have deserted them, turn theireyes toward the future; and the prophetess is not

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 420likely to suffer for her prophecies. Is it possible that
my thirst for greatness has originated from this
source? But here I recollect an impression from the
later years of my childhood, which might serve even
better as an explanation. One evening, at a
restaurant on the Prater, where my parents were
accustomed to take me when I was eleven or twelve
years of age, we noticed a man who was going from
table to table and, for a small sum, improvisingverses upon any subject that was given him. I was
sent to bring the poet to our table, and he showed
his gratitude. Before asking for a subject he threw
off a few rhymes about myself, and told us that if he
could trust his inspiration I should probably one day
become a minister. I can still distinctly remember
the impression produced by this second prophecy. It
was in the days of the "bourgeois Ministry"; my
father had recently brought home the portraits of
the bourgeois university graduates, Herbst, Giskra,
Unger, Berger and others, and we illuminated thehouse in their honour. There were even Jews among

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 421them; so that every diligent Jewish schoolboy
carried a ministerial portfolio in his satchel. The
impression of that time must be responsible for the
fact that until shortly before I went to the university
I wanted to study jurisprudence, and changed my
mind only at the last moment. A medical man has
no chance of becoming a minister. And now for my
dream: It is only now that I begin to see that it
translates me from the sombre present to thehopeful days of the bourgeois Ministry, and
completely fulfils what was then my youthful
ambition. In treating my two estimable and learned
colleagues, merely because they are Jews, so badly,
one as though he were a simpleton and the other as
though he were a criminal, I am acting as though I
were the Minister; I have put myself in his place.
What a revenge I take upon his Excellency! He
refuses to appoint me Professor extraordinarius, and
so in my dream I put myself in his place.
In another case I note the fact that although
the wish that excites the dream is a contemporary

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 422wish it is nevertheless greatly reinforced by
memories of childhood. I refer to a series of dreams
which are based on the longing to go to Rome. For a
long time to come I shall probably have to satisfy
this longing by means of dreams, since, at the
season of the year when I should be able to travel,
Rome is to be avoided for reasons of health.[13]
Thus I once dreamt that I saw the Tiber and the
bridge of Sant' Angelo from the window of a railwaycarriage; presently the train started, and I realized
that I had never entered the city at all. The view
that appeared in the dream was modelled after a
well-known engraving which I had casually noticed
the day before in the drawing-room of one of my
patients. In another dream someone took me up a
hill and showed me Rome half shrouded in mist, and
so distant that I was astonished at the distinctness
of the view. The content of this dream is too rich to
be fully reported here. The motive, "to see the
promised land afar," is here easily recognizable. Thecity which I thus saw in the mist is Lubeck; the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 423original of the hill is the Gleichenberg. In a third
dream I am at last in Rome. To my disappointment
the scenery is anything but urban: it consists of a
little stream of black water, on one side of which are
black rocks, while on the other are meadows with
large white flowers. I notice a certain Herr Zucker
(with whom I am superficially acquainted), and
resolve to ask him to show me the way into the city.
It is obvious that I am trying in vain to see in mydream a city which I have never seen in my waking
life. If I resolve the landscape into its elements, the
white flowers point to Ravenna, which is known to
me, and which once, for a time, replaced Rome as
the capital of Italy. In the marshes around Ravenna
we had found the most beautiful water-lilies in the
midst of black pools of water; the dream makes
them grow in the meadows, like the narcissi of our
own Aussee, because we found it so troublesome to
cull them from the water. The black rock so close to
the water vividly recalls the valley of the Tepl atKarlsbad. Karlsbad now enables me to account for

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 424the peculiar circumstance that I ask Herr Zucker to
show me the way. In the material of which the
dream is woven I am able to recognize two of those
amusing Jewish anecdotes which conceal such
profound and, at times, such bitter worldly wisdom,
and which we are so fond of quoting in our letters
and conversation. One is the story of the
constitution; it tells how a poor Jew sneaks into the
Karlsbad express without a ticket; how he isdetected, and is treated more and more harshly by
the conductor at each succeeding call for tickets;
and how, when a friend whom he meets at one of
the stations during his miserable journey asks him
where he is going, he answers: "To Karlsbad- if my
constitution holds out." Associated in memory with
this is another story about a Jew who is ignorant of
French, and who has express instructions to ask in
Paris for the Rue Richelieu. Paris was for many years
the goal of my own longing, and I regarded the
satisfaction with which I first set foot on thepavements of Paris as a warrant that I should attain

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 425to the fulfilment of other wishes also. Moreover,
asking the way is a direct allusion to Rome, for, as
we know, "all roads lead to Rome." And further, the
name Zucker (sugar) again points to Karlsbad,
whither we send persons afflicted with the
constitutional disease, diabetes (Zuckerkrankheit,
sugardisease.) The occasion for this dream was the
proposal of my Berlin friend that we should meet in
Prague at Easter. A further association with sugarand diabetes might be found in the matters which I
had to discuss with him. –
A fourth dream, occurring shortly after the
last-mentioned, brings me back to Rome. I see a
street corner before me, and am astonished that so
many German placards should be posted there. On
the previous day, when writing to my friend, I had
told him, with truly prophetic vision, that Prague
would probably not be a comfortable place for
German travellers. The dream, therefore, expressed
simultaneously the wish to meet him in Romeinstead of in the Bohemian capital, and the desire,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 426which probably originated during my student days,
that the German language might be accorded more
tolerance in Prague. As a matter of fact, I must have
understood the Czech language in the first years of
my childhood, for I was born in a small village in
Moravia, amidst a Slay population. A Czech nursery
rhyme, which I heard in my seventeenth year,
became, without effort on my part, so imprinted
u p o n m y m e m o r y t h a t I c a n r e p e a t i t t o t h i s d a y ,although I have no idea of its meaning. Thus in
these dreams also there is no lack of manifold
relations to the impressions of my early childhood.
During my last Italian journey, which took
me past Lake Trasimenus, I at length discovered,
after I had seen the Tiber, and had reluctantly
turned back some fifty miles from Rome, what a
reinforcement my longing for the Eternal City had
received from the impressions of my childhood. I
had just conceived a plan of travelling to Naples via
Rome the following year when this sentence, which Imust have read in one of our German classics,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 427occurred to me:[14] "It is a question which of the
two paced to and fro in his room the more
impatiently after he had conceived the plan of going
to Rome- Assistant Headmaster Winckelmann or the
great General Hannibal." I myself had walked in
Hannibal's footsteps; like him I was destined never
to see Rome, and he too had gone to Campania
when all were expecting him in Rome. Hannibal,
with whom I had achieved this point of similarity,had been my favourite hero during my years at the
Gymnasium; like so many boys of my age, I
bestowed my sympathies in the Punic war not on the
Romans, but on the Carthaginians. Moreover, when
I finally came to realize the consequences of
belonging to an alien race, and was forced by the
anti-Semitic feeling among my classmates to take a
definite stand, the figure of the Semitic commander
assumed still greater proportions in my imagination.
Hannibal and Rome symbolized, in my youthful
eyes, the struggle between the tenacity of the Jewsand the organization of the Catholic Church. The

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 428significance for our emotional life which the anti-
Semitic movement has since assumed helped to fix
the thoughts and impressions of those earlier days.
Thus the desire to go to Rome has in my dream- life
become the mask and symbol for a number of
warmly cherished wishes, for whose realization one
had to work with the tenacity and single-mindedness
of the Punic general, though their fulfilment at times
seemed as remote as Hannibal's life-long wish toenter Rome. –
And now, for the first time, I happened upon
the youthful experience which even to-day still
expresses its power in all these emotions and
dreams. I might have been ten or twelve years old
when my father began to take me with him on his
walks, and in his conversation to reveal his views on
the things of this world. Thus it was that he once
told me the following incident, in order to show me
that I had been born into happier times than he:
"When I was a young man, I was walking oneSaturday along the street in the village where you

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 429were born; I was well-dressed, with a new fur cap
on my head. Up comes a Christian, who knocks my
cap into the mud, and shouts, 'Jew, get off the
pavement!'"- "And what did you do?"- "I went into
the street and picked up the cap," he calmly replied.
That did not seem heroic on the part of the big,
strong man who was leading me, a little fellow, by
the hand. I contrasted this situation, which did not
please me, with another, more in harmony with mysentiments- the scene in which Hannibal's father,
Hamilcar Barcas, made his son swear before the
household altar to take vengeance on the
Romans.[15] Ever since then Hannibal has had a
place in my phantasies. –
I think I can trace my enthusiasm for the
Carthaginian general still further back into my
childhood, so that it is probably only an instance of
an already established emotional relation being
transferred to a new vehicle. One of the first books
which fell into my childish hands after I learned toread was Thiers' Consulate and Empire. I remember

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 430that I pasted on the flat backs of my wooden
soldiers little labels bearing the names of the
Imperial marshals, and that at that time Massena
(as a Jew, Menasse) was already my avowed
favourite.[16] This preference is doubtless also to be
explained by the fact of my having been born, a
hundred years later, on the same date. Napoleon
himself is associated with Hannibal through the
crossing of the Alps. And perhaps the developmentof this martial ideal may be traced yet farther back,
to the first three years of my childhood, to wishes
which my alternately friendly and hostile relations
with a boy a year older than myself must have
evoked in the weaker of the two playmates. –
The deeper we go into the analysis of
dreams, the more often are we put on the track of
childish experiences which play the part of dream-
sources in the latent dream-content.
We have learned that dreams very rarely
reproduce memories in such a manner as toconstitute, unchanged and unabridged, the sole

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 431manifest dream-content. Nevertheless, a few
authentic examples which show such reproduction
have been recorded, and I can add a few new ones,
which once more refer to scenes of childhood. In the
case of one of my patients a dream once gave a
barely distorted reproduction of a sexual incident,
which was immediately recognized as an accurate
recollection. The memory of it had never been
completely lost in the waking life, but it had beengreatly obscured, and it was revivified by the
previous work of analysis. The dreamer had at the
age of twelve visited a bedridden schoolmate, who
had exposed himself, probably only by a chance
movement in bed. At the sight of the boy's genitals
he was seized by a kind of compulsion, exposed
himself, and took hold of the member of the other
boy who, however, looked at him in surprise and
indignation, whereupon he became embarrassed and
let it go. A dream repeated this scene twenty-three
years later, with all the details of the accompanyingemotions, changing it, however, in this respect, that

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 432the dreamer played the passive instead of the active
role, while the person of the schoolmate was
replaced by a contemporary.
As a rule, of course, a scene from childhood
is represented in the manifest dream-content only
by an allusion, and must be disentangled from the
dream by interpretation. The citation of examples of
this kind cannot be very convincing, because any
guarantee that they are really experiences ofchildhood is lacking; if they belong to an earlier
period of life, they are no longer recognized by our
memory. The conclusion that such childish
experiences recur at all in dreams is justified in
psychoanalytic work by a great number of factors,
which in their combined results appear to be
sufficiently reliable. But when, for the purposes of
dream-interpretation, such references to childish
experiences are torn out of their context, they may
not perhaps seem very impressive, especially where
I do not even give all the material upon which the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 433interpretation is based. However, I shall not let this
deter me from giving a few examples. –
I.
With one of my female patients all dreams
have the character of hurry; she is hurrying so as to
be in time, so as not to miss her train, and so on. In
one dream she has to visit a girl friend; her mother
had told her to ride and not walk; she runs,
however, and keeps on calling. The material thatemerged in the analysis allowed one to recognize a
memory of childish romping, and, especially for one
dream, went back to the popular childish game of
rapidly repeating the words of a sentence as though
it was all one word. All these harmless jokes with
little friends were remembered because they
replaced other less harmless ones.[17] –
II.
The following dream was dreamed by
another female patient: She is in a large room in
which there are all sorts of machines; it is rather likewhat she would imagine an orthopaedic institute to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 434be. She hears that I am pressed for time, and that
she must undergo treatment along with five others.
But she resists, and is unwilling to lie down on the
bed- or whatever it is- which is intended for her.
She stands in a corner, and waits for me to say "It is
not true." The others, meanwhile, laugh at her,
saying it is all foolishness on her part. At the same
time, it is as though she were called upon to make a
number of little squares.
The first part of the content of this dream is
an allusion to the treatment and to the transference
to myself. The second contains an allusion to a
scene of childhood; the two portions are connected
by the mention of the bed. The orthopaedic institute
is an allusion to one of my talks, in which I
compared the treatment, with regard to its duration
and its nature. to an orthopaedic treatment. At the
beginning of the treatment I had to tell her that for
the present I had little time to give her, but that
later on I would devote a whole hour to her daily.This aroused in her the old sensitiveness, which is a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 435leading characteristic of children who are destined to
become hysterical. Their desire for love is insatiable.
My patient was the youngest of six brothers and
sisters (hence, with five others), and as such her
father's favourite, but in spite of this she seems to
have felt that her beloved father devoted far too
little time and attention to her. Her waiting for me to
say It is not trite was derived as follows: A little
tailor's apprentice had brought her a dress, and shehad given him the money for it. Then she asked her
husband whether she would have to pay the money
again if the boy were to lose it. To tease her, her
husband answered "Yes" (the teasing in the dream),
and she asked again and again, and waited for him
to say "It is not true." The thought of the latent
dream- content may now be construed as follows:
Will she have to pay me double the amount when I
devote twice as much time to her?- a thought which
is stingy or filthy (the uncleanliness of childhood is
often replaced in dreams by greed for money; theword filthy here supplies the bridge). If all the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 436passage referring to her waiting until I say It is not
true is intended in the dream as a circumlocution for
the word dirty, the standingin-the-corner and not
lying-down-on-the-bed are in keeping with this
word, as component parts of a scene of her
childhood in which she had soiled her bed, in
punishment for which she was put into the corner,
with a warning that papa would not love her any
more, whereupon her brothers and sisters laughedat her, etc. The little squares refer to her young
niece, who showed her the arithmetical trick of
writing figures in nine squares (I think) in such a
way that on being added together in any direction
they make fifteen. –
III.
Here is a man's dream: He sees two boys
tussling with each other; they are cooper's boys, as
he concludes from the tools which are lying about;
one of the boys has thrown the other down; the
prostrate boy is wearing ear-rings with blue stones.He runs towards the assailant with lifted cane, in

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 437order to chastise him. The boy takes refuge behind a
woman, as though she were his mother, who is
standing against a wooden fence. She is the wife of
a day-labourer, and she turns her back to the man
who is dreaming. Finally she turns about and stares
at him with a horrible look, so that he runs away in
terror; the red flesh of the lower lid seems to stand
out from her eyes.
This dream has made abundant use of trivial
occurrences from the previous day, in the course of
which he actually saw two boys in the street, one of
whom threw the other down. When he walked up to
them in order to settle the quarrel, both of them
took to their heels. Cooper's boys- this is explained
only by a
subsequent dream, in the analysis of which
he used the proverbial expression: "To knock the
bottom out of the barrel." Ear-rings with blue
stones, according to his observation, are worn
chiefly by prostitutes. This suggests a familiardoggerel rhyme about two boys: "The other boy was

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 438called Marie": that is, he was a girl. The woman
standing by the fence: after the scene with the two
boys he went for a walk along the bank of the
Danube and, taking advantage of being alone,
urinated against a wooden fence. A little farther on a
respectably dressed, elderly lady smiled at him very
pleasantly and wanted to hand him her card with her
address.
Since, in the dream, the woman stood as he
had stood while urinating, there is an allusion to a
woman urinating, and this explains the horrible look
and the prominence of the red flesh, which can only
refer to the genitals gaping in a squatting posture;
seen in childhood, they had appeared in later
recollection as proud flesh, as a wound. The dream
unites two occasions upon which, as a little boy, the
dreamer was enabled to see the genitals of little
girls, once by throwing the little girl down, and once
while the child was urinating; and, as is shown by
another association, he had retained in his memorythe punishment administered or threatened by his

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 439father on account of these manifestations of sexual
curiosity. –
IV.
A great mass of childish memories, which
have been hastily combined into a phantasy, may be
found behind the following dream of an elderly lady:
She goes out in a hurry to do some shopping. On
the Graben she sinks to her knees as though she
had broken down. A number of people collect aroundher, especially cabdrivers, but no one helps her to
get up. She makes many vain attempts; finally she
must have succeeded, for she is put into a cab which
is to take her home. A large, heavily laden basket
(something like a market- basket) is thrown after
her through the window.
This is the woman who is always harassed in
her dreams; just as she used to be harassed when a
child. The first situation of the dream is apparently
taken from the sight of a fallen horse; just as broken
down points to horse-racing. In her youth she was arider; still earlier she was probably also a horse.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 440With the idea of falling down is connected her first
childish reminiscence of the seventeen-year-old son
of the hall porter, who had an epileptic seizure in the
street and was brought home in a cab. Of this, of
course, she had only heard, but the idea of epileptic
fits, of falling down, acquired a great influence over
her phantasies, and later on influenced the form of
her own hysterical attacks. When a person of the
female sex dreams of falling, this almost always hasa sexual significance; she becomes a fallen woman,
and, for the purpose of the dream under
consideration, this interpretation is probably the
least doubtful, for she falls in the Graben, the street
in Vienna which is known as the concourse of
prostitutes. The market-basket admits of more than
one interpretation; in the sense of refusal (German,
Korb = basket = snub, refusal) it reminds her of the
many snubs which she at first administered to her
suitors and which, she thinks, she herself received
later. This agrees with the detail: no one will helpher up, which she herself interprets as being

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 441disdained. Further, the market-basket recalls
phantasies which have already appeared in the
course of analysis, in which she imagines that she
has married far beneath her station and now goes to
the market as a market-woman. Lastly, the market-
basket might be interpreted as the mark of a
servant. This suggests further memories of her
childhood- of a cook who was discharged because
she stole; she, too, sank to her knees and beggedfor mercy. The dreamer was at that time twelve
years of age. Then emerges a recollection of a
chamber-maid, who was dismissed because she had
an affair with the coachman of the household, who,
incidentally, married her afterwards. This
recollection, therefore, gives us a clue to the cab-
drivers in the dream (who, in opposition to the
reality, do not stand by the fallen woman). But there
still remains to be explained the throwing of the
basket; in particular, why it is thrown through the
window? This reminds her of the forwarding ofluggage by rail, to the custom of Fensterln[18] in

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 442the country, and to trivial impressions of a summer
resort, of a gentleman who threw some blue plums
into the window of a lady's room, and of her little
sister, who was frightened because an idiot who was
passing looked in at the window. And now, from
behind all this emerges an obscure recollection from
her tenth year of a nurse in the country to whom
one of the men-servants made love (and whose
conduct the child may have noticed), and who wassent packing, thrown out, together with her lover (in
the dream we have the expression: thrown into); an
incident which we have been approaching by several
other paths. The luggage or box of a servant is
disparagingly described in Vienna as "seven plums."
"Pack up your seven plums and get out!" –
My collection, of course, contains a plethora
of such patients' dreams, the analysis of which leads
back to impressions of childhood, often dating back
to the first three years of life, which are
remembered obscurely, or not at all. But it is aquestionable proceeding to draw conclusions from

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 443these and apply them to dreams in general, for they
are mostly dreams of neurotic, and especially
hysterical, persons; and the part played in these
dreams by childish scenes might be conditioned by
the nature of the neurosis, and not by the nature of
dreams in general. In the interpretation of my own
dreams, however, which is assuredly not undertaken
on account of grave symptoms of illness, it happens
just as frequently that in the latent dreamcontent Iam unexpectedly confronted with a scene of my
childhood, and that a whole series of my dreams will
suddenly converge upon the paths proceeding from
a single childish experience. I have already given
examples of this, and I shall give yet more in
different connections. Perhaps I cannot close this
chapter more fittingly than by citing several dreams
of my own, in which recent events and long-
forgotten experiences of my childhood appear
together as dream-sources.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 444I.
After I have been travelling, and have gone
to bed hungry and tired, the prime necessities of life
begin to assert their claims in sleep, and I dream as
follows: I go into a kitchen in order to ask for some
pudding. There three women are standing, one of
whom is the hostess; she is rolling something in her
hands, as though she were making dumplings. She
replies that I must wait until she has finished (notdistinctly as a speech). I become impatient, and go
away affronted. I want to put on an overcoat; but
the first I try on is too long. I take it off, and am
somewhat astonished to find that it is trimmed with
fur. A second coat has a long strip of cloth with a
Turkish design sewn into it. A stranger with a long
face and a short, pointed beard comes up and
prevents me from putting it on, declaring
that it belongs to him. I now show him that it is
covered all over with Turkish embroideries. He asks:
"How do the Turkish (drawings, strips of cloth…)concern you?" But we soon become quite friendly.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 445In the analysis of this dream I remember,
quite unexpectedly, the first novel which I ever read,
or rather, which I began to read from the end of the
first volume, when I was perhaps thirteen years of
age. I have never learned the name of the novel, or
that of its author, but the end remains vividly in my
memory. The hero becomes insane, and continually
calls out the names of the three women who have
brought the greatest happiness and the greatestmisfortune into his life. Pelagie is one of these
names. I still do not know what to make of this
recollection during the analysis. Together with the
three women there now emerge the three Parcae,
who spin the fates of men, and I know that one of
the three women, the hostess in the dream, is the
mother who gives life, and who, moreover, as in my
own case, gives the child its first nourishment. Love
and hunger meet at the mother's breast. A young
man- so runs an anecdote- who became a great
admirer of womanly beauty, once observed, whenthe conversation turned upon the handsome wet-

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 446nurse who had suckled him as a child, that he was
sorry that he had not taken better advantage of his
opportunities. I am in the habit of using the
anecdote to elucidate the factor of retrospective
tendencies in the mechanism of the psychoneuroses.
One of the Parcae, then, is rubbing the palms of her
hands together, as though she were making
dumplings. A strange occupation for one of the
Fates, and urgently in need of explanation! Thisexplanation is furnished by another and earlier
memory of my childhood. When I was six years old,
and receiving my first lessons from my mother, I
was expected to believe that we are made of dust,
and must, therefore, return to dust. But this did not
please me, and I questioned the doctrine.
Thereupon my mother rubbed the palms of her
hands together-just as in making dumplings, except
that there was no dough between them- and showed
me the blackish scales of epidermis which were thus
rubbed off, as a proof that it is of dust that we aremade. Great was my astonishment at this

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 447demonstration ad oculos, and I acquiesced in the
idea which I was later to hear expressed in the
words: "Thou owest nature a death."[19] Thus the
women to whom I go in the kitchen, as I so often
did in my childhood when I was hungry and my
mother, sitting by the fire, admonished me to wait
until lunch was ready, are really the Parcae. And
now for the dumplings! At least one of my teachers
at the University- the very one to whom I amindebted for my histological knowledge (epidermis)-
would be reminded by the name Knodl (Knodl
means dumpling), of a person whom he had to
prosecute for plagiarizing his writings. Committing a
plagiarism, taking anything one can lay hands on,
even though it belongs to another, obviously leads
to the second part of the dream, in which I am
treated like the overcoat thief who for some time
plied his trade in the lecture halls. I have written the
word plagiarism- without definite intention- because
it occurred to me, and now I see that it must belongto the latent dream-content and that it will serve as

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 448a bridge between the different parts of the manifest
dream-content. The chain of associations- Pelagie-
plagiarism- plagiostomi[20] (sharks)- fish-bladder-
connects the old novel with the affair of Knodl and
the overcoats (German: Uberzieher = pullover,
overcoat or condom), which obviously refer to an
appliance appertaining to the technique of sex. This,
it is true, is a very forced and irrational connection,
but it is nevertheless one which I could not haveestablished in waking life if it had not already been
established by the dream-work. Indeed, as though
nothing were sacred to this impulse to enforce
associations, the beloved name, Brucke (bridge of
words, see above), now serves to remind me of the
very institute in which I spent my happiest hours as
a student, wanting for nothing. "So will you at the
breasts of Wisdom every day more pleasure find"),
in the most complete contrast to the desires which
plague me (German: plagen) while I dream. And
finally, there emerges the recollection of anotherdear teacher, whose name once more sounds like

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 449something edible (Fleischl- Fleisch = meat- like
Knodl = dumplings), and of a pathetic scene in
which the scales of epidermis play a part (mother-
hostess), and mental derangement (the novel), and
a remedy from the Latin pharmacopeia (Kuche =
kitchen) which numbs the sensation of hunger,
namely, cocaine.
In this manner I could follow the intricate
trains of thought still farther, and could fullyelucidate that part of the dream which is lacking in
the analysis; but I must refrain, because the
personal sacrifice which this would involve is too
great. I shall take up only one of the threads, which
will serve to lead us directly to one of the dream-
thoughts that lie at the bottom of the medley. The
stranger with the long face and pointed beard, who
wants to prevent me from putting on the overcoat,
has the features of a tradesman of Spalato, of whom
my wife bought a great deal of Turkish cloth. His
name was Popovic, a suspicious name, which evengave the humorist Stettenheim a pretext for a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 450suggestive remark: "He told me his name, and
blushingly shook my hand."[21] For the rest, I find
the same misuse of names as above in the case of
Pelagie, Knodl, Brucke, Fleischl. No one will deny
that such playing with names is a childish trick; if I
indulge in it the practice amounts to an act of
retribution, for my own name has often enough been
the subject of such feeble attempts at wit. Goethe
once remarked how sensitive a man is in respect tohis name, which he feels that he fills even as he fills
his skin; Herder having written the following lines on
his name:
Der du von Gottern abstammst, von Gothen
oder vom Kote.
So seid ihr Gotterbilder auch zu Staub. –
[Thou who art born of the gods, of the
Goths, or of the mud. Thus are thy godlike images
even dust.] –
I realize that this digression on the misuse
of names was intended merely to justify thiscomplaint. But here let us stop…. The purchase at

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 451Spalato reminds me of another purchase at Cattaro,
where I was too cautious, and missed the
opportunity of making an excellent bargain. (Missing
an opportunity at the breast of the wet- nurse; see
above.) One of the dream-thoughts occasioned by
the sensation of hunger really amounts to this: We
should let nothing escape; we should take what we
can get, even if we do a little wrong; we should
never let an opportunity go by; life is so short, anddeath inevitable. Because this is meant even
sexually, and because desire is unwilling to check
itself before the thought of doing wrong, this
philosophy of carpe diem has reason to fear the
censorship, and must conceal itself behind a dream.
And so all sorts of counter-thoughts find expression,
with recollections of the time when spiritual
nourishment alone was sufficient for the dreamer,
with hindrances of every kind and even threats of
disgusting sexual punishments. –

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 452II.
A second dream requires a longer
preliminary statement:
I had driven to the Western Station in order
to start on a holiday trip to the Aussee, but I went
on to the platform in time for the Ischl train, which
leaves earlier. There I saw Count Thun, who was
again going to see the Emperor at Ischl. In spite of
the rain he arrived in an open carriage, camestraight through the entrance- gate for the local
trains, and with a curt gesture and not a word of
explanation he waved back the gatekeeper, who did
not know him and wanted to take his ticket. After he
had left in the Ischl train, I was asked to leave the
platform and return to the waiting- room; but after
some difficulty I obtained permission to remain. I
passed the time noting how many people bribed the
officials to secure a compartment; I fully intended to
make a complaint- that is, to demand the same
privilege. Meanwhile I sang something to myself,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 453which I afterwards recognized as the aria from The
Marriage of Figaro: –
If my lord Count would tread a measure,
tread a measure, Let him but say his pleasure,
And I will play the tune. –
(Possibly another person would not have
recognized the tune.) The whole evening I was in a
high-spirited, pugnacious mood; I chaffed the waiter
and the cab-driver, I hope without hurting theirfeelings; and now all kinds of bold and revolutionary
thoughts came into my mind, such as would fit
themselves to the words of Figaro, and to memories
of Beaumarchais' comedy, of which I had seen a
performance at the Comedie Francaise. The speech
about the great men who have taken the trouble to
be born; the seigneurial right which Count Almaviva
wishes to exercise with regard to Susanne; the jokes
which our malicious Opposition journalists make on
the name of Count Thun (German, thun = do),
calling him Graf Nichtsthun, Count-Do-Nothing. Ireally do not envy him; he now has a difficult

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 454audience with the Emperor before him, and it is I
who am the real Count-Do-Nothing, for I am going
off for a holiday. I make all sorts of amusing plans
for the vacation. Now a gentleman arrives whom I
know as a Government representative at the
medical examinations, and who has won the
flattering nickname of "the Governmental bed-
fellow" (literally, by-sleeper) by his activities in this
capacity. By insisting on his official status hesecured half a first-class compartment, and I heard
one guard say to another: "Where are we going to
put the gentleman with the first-class half-
compartment?" A pretty sort of favouritism! I am
paying for a whole first-class compartment. I did
actually get a whole compartment to myself, but not
in a through carriage, so there was no lavatory at
my disposal during the night. My complaints to the
guard were fruitless; I revenged myself by
suggesting that at least a hole be made in the floor
of this compartment, to serve the possible needs ofpassengers. At a quarter to three in the morning I

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 455w a k e , w i t h a n u r g e n t d e s i r e t o u r i n a t e , f r o m t h e
following dream:
A crowd, a students' meeting…. A certain
Count (Thun or Taaffe) is making a speech. Being
asked to say something about the Germans, he
declares, with a contemptuous gesture, that their
favourite flower is coltsfoot, and he then puts into
his buttonhole something like a torn leaf, really the
crumpled skeleton of a leaf. I jump up, and I jumpup,[22] but I am surprised at my implied attitude.
Then, more indistinctly: It seems as though this
were the vestibule (Aula); the exits are thronged,
and one must escape. I make my way through a
suite of handsomely appointed rooms, evidently
ministerial apartments, with furniture of a colour
between brown and violet, and at last I come to a
corridor in which a housekeeper, a fat, elderly
woman, is seated. I try to avoid speaking to her, but
she apparently thinks I have a right to pass this
way, because she asks whether she shall accompanyme with the lamp. I indicate with a gesture, or tell

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 456her, that she is to remain standing on the stairs, and
it seems to me that I am very clever, for after all I
am evading detection. Now I am downstairs, and I
find a narrow, steeply rising path, which I follow. –
Again indistinctly: It is as though my second
task were to get away from the city, just as my first
was to get out of the building. I am riding in a one-
horse cab, and I tell the driver to take me to a
railway station. "I can't drive with you on the railwayline itself," I say, when he reproaches me as though
I had tired him out. Here it seems as though I had
already made a journey in his cab which is usually
made by rail. The stations are crowded; I am
wondering whether to go to Krems or to Znaim, but
I reflect that the Court will be there, and I decide in
favour of Graz or some such place. Now I am seated
in the railway carriage, which is rather like a tram,
and I have in my buttonhole a peculiar long braided
thing, on which are violet-brown violets of stiff
material, which makes a great impression on people.Here the scene breaks off.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 457I a m o n c e m o r e i n f r o n t o f t h e r a i l w a y
station, but I am in the company of an elderly
gentleman. I think out a scheme for remaining
unrecognized, but I see this plan already being
carried out. Thinking and experiencing are here, as
it were, the same thing. He pretends to be blind, at
least in one eye, and I hold before him a male glass
u r i n a l ( w h i c h w e h a v e t o b u y i n t h e c i t y , o r h a v e
bought). I am thus a sick-nurse, and have to givehim the urinal because he is blind. If the conductor
sees us in this position, he must pass us by without
drawing attention to us. At the same time the
position of the elderly man, and his urinating organ,
is plastically perceived. Then I wake with a desire to
urinate.
The whole dream seems a sort of phantasy,
which takes the dreamer back to the year of
revolution, 1848, the memory of which had been
revived by the jubilee of 1898, as well as by a little
excursion to Wachau, on which I visitedEmmersdorf, the refuge of the student leader

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 458Fischof,[23] to whom several features of the
manifest dream- content might refer. The
association of ideas then leads me to England, to the
house of my brother, who used in jest to twit his
wife with the title of Tennyson's poem Fifty Years
Ago, whereupon the children were used to correct
h i m : F i f t e e n Y e a r s A g o . T h i s p h a n t a s y , h o w e v e r ,
which attaches itself to the thoughts evoked by the
sight of Count Thun, is, like the facade of an Italianchurch, without organic connection with the
structure behind it, but unlike such a facade it is full
of gaps, and confused, and in many places portions
of the interior break through. The first situation of
the dream is made up of a number of scenes, into
which I am able to dissect it. The arrogant attitude
of the Count in the dream is copied from a scene at
my school which occurred in my fifteenth year. We
had hatched a conspiracy against an unpopular and
ignorant teacher; the leading spirit in this conspiracy
was a schoolmate who since that time seems tohave taken Henry VIII of England as his model. It

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 459fell to me to carry out the coup d'etat, and a
discussion of the importance of the Danube
(German, Donau) to Austria (Wachau!) was the
occasion of an open revolt. One of our fellow-
conspirators was our only aristocratic schoolmate-
he was called "the giraffe" on account of his
conspicuous height- and while he was being
reprimanded by the tyrant of the school, the
professor of the German language, he stood just asthe Count stood in the dream. The explanation of
the favourite flower, and the putting into a button-
h o l e o f s o m e t h i n g t h a t m u s t h a v e b e e n a f l o w e r
(which recalls the orchids which I had given that day
to a friend, and also a rose of Jericho) prominently
recalls the incident in Shakespeare's historical play
which opens the civil wars of the Red and the White
Roses; the mention of Henry VIII has paved the way
to this reminiscence. Now it is not very far from
roses to red and white carnations. (Meanwhile two
little rhymes, the one German, the other Spanish,insinuate themselves into the analysis: Rosen,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 460Tulpen, Nelken, alle Blumen welken,[24] and
Isabelita, no llores, que se marchitan las flores.[25]
The Spanish line occurs in Figaro.) Here in Vienna
white carnations have become the badge of the
Anti-Semites, red ones of the Social Democrats.
Behind this is the recollection of an anti-Semitic
challenge during a railway journey in beautiful
Saxony (Anglo Saxon). The third scene contributing
to the formation of the first situation in the dreamdates from my early student days. There was a
debate in a German students' club about the relation
of philosophy to the general sciences. Being a green
youth, full of materialistic doctrines, I thrust myself
forward in order to defend an extremely one-sided
position. Thereupon a sagacious older fellow-
student, who has since then shown his capacity for
leading men and organizing the masses, and who,
moreover, bears a name belonging to the animal
kingdom, rose and gave us a thorough dressing-
down; he too, he said, had herded swine in hisyouth, and had then returned repentant to his

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 461father's house. I jumped up (as in the dream),
became piggishly rude, and retorted that since I
knew he had herded swine, I was not surprised at
the tone of his discourse. (In the dream I am
surprised at my German Nationalistic feelings.)
There was a great commotion, and an almost
general demand that I should retract my words, but
I stood my ground. The insulted student was too
sensible to take the advice which was offered him,that he should send me a challenge, and let the
matter drop. –
The remaining elements of this scene of the
dream are of more remote origin. What does it
mean that the Count should make a scornful
reference to coltsfoot? Here I must question my
train of associations. Coltsfoot (German: Huflattich),
Lattice (lettuce), Salathund (the dog that grudges
others what he cannot eat himself). Here plenty of
opprobrious epithets may be discerned: Gir-affe
(German: Affe = monkey, ape), pig, sow, dog; Imight even arrive, by way of the name, at donkey,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 462and thereby pour contempt upon an academic
professor. Furthermore, I translate coltsfoot
(Huflattich)- I do not know whether I do so
correctly- by pisse-en-lit. I get this idea from Zola's
Germinal, in which some children are told to bring
some dandelion salad with them. The dog- chien-
has a name sounding not unlike the verb for the
major function (chier, as pisser stands for the minor
one). Now we shall soon have the indecent in all itsthree physical categories, for in the same Germinal,
which deals with the future revolution, there is a
description of a very peculiar contest, which relates
to the production of the gaseous excretions known
as flatus.[26] And now I cannot but observe how the
way to this flatus has been prepared a long while
since, beginning with the flowers, and proceeding to
the Spanish rhyme of Isabelita, to Ferdinand and
Isabella, and, by way of Henry VIII, to English
history at the time of the Armada, after the
victorious termination of which the English struck amedal with the inscription: Flavit et dissipati sunt,

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 463for the storm had scattered the Spanish fleet. [27] I
had thought of using this phrase, half jestingly, as
the title of a chapter on "Therapy," if I should ever
succeed in giving a detailed account of my
conception and treatment of hysteria. –
I cannot give so detailed an interpretation of
the second scene of the dream, out of sheer regard
for the censorship. For at this point I put myself in
the place of a certain eminent gentleman of therevolutionary period, who had an adventure with an
eagle (German: Adler) and who is said to have
suffered from incontinence of the bowels,
incontinentia and, etc.; and here I believe that I
should not be justified in passing the censorship,
even though it was an aulic councillor (aula,
consiliarizis aulicus) who told me the greater part of
this history. The suite of rooms in the dream is
suggested by his Excellency's private saloon
carriage, into which I was able to glance; but it
means, as it so often does in dreams, a woman.[28]The personality of the housekeeper is an ungrateful

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 464allusion to a witty old lady, which ill repays her for
the good times and the many good stories which I
have enjoyed in her house. The incident of the lamp
goes back to Grillparzer, who notes a charming
experience of a similar nature, of which he
afterwards made use in Hero and Leander (the
waves of the sea and of love- the Armada and the
storm). –
I must forego a detailed analysis of the two
remaining portions of the dream; I shall single out
only those elements which lead me back to the two
scenes of my childhood for the sake of which alone I
have selected the dream. The reader will rightly
assume that it is sexual material which necessitates
the suppression; but he may not be content with
this explanation. There are many things of which
one makes no secret to oneself, but which must be
treated as secrets in addressing others, and here we
are concerned not with the reasons which induce me
to conceal the solution, but with the motive of theinner censorship which conceals the real content of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 465the dream even from myself. Concerning this, I will
confess that the analysis reveals these three
portions of the dream as impertinent boasting, the
exuberance of an absurd megalomania, long ago
suppressed in my waking life, which, however, dares
to show itself, with individual ramifications, even in
the manifest dream- content (it seems to me that I
am a cunning fellow), making the high-spirited
mood of the evening before the dream perfectlyintelligible.
Boasting of every kind, indeed thus, the
mention of Graz points to the phrase: "What price
Graz?" which one is wont to use when one feels
unusually wealthy. Readers who recall Master
Rabelais's inimitable description of the life and deeds
of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel will be able to
enroll even the suggested content of the first portion
of the dream among the boasts to which I have
alluded. But the following belongs to the two scenes
of childhood of which I have spoken: I had bought anew trunk for this journey, the colour of which, a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 466brownish violet, appears in the dream several times
(violet-brown violets of a stiff cloth, on an object
which is known as a girl-catcher- the furniture in the
ministerial chambers). Children, we know, believe
that one attracts people's attention with anything
new. Now I have been told of the following incident
of my childhood; my recollection of the occurrence
itself has been replaced by my recollection of the
story. I am told that at the age of two I still usedoccasionally to wet my bed, and that when I was
reproved for doing so I consoled my father by
promising to buy him a beautiful new red bed in N
(the nearest large town). Hence, the interpolation in
the dream, that we had bought the urinal in the city
or had to buy it; one must keep one's promises.
(One should note, moreover, the association of the
male urinal and the woman's trunk, box.) All the
megalomania of the child is contained in this
promise. The significance of dreams of urinary
difficulties in the case of children has already beenconsidered in the interpretation of an earlier dream

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 467(cf. the dream in chapter V., A.). The psycho-
analysis of neurotics has taught us to recognize the
intimate connection between wetting the bed and
the character trait of ambition.
Then, when I was seven or eight years of
age another domestic incident occurred which I
remember very well. One evening, before going to
bed, I had disregarded the dictates of discretion,
and had satisfied my needs in my parents' bedroom,and in their presence. Reprimanding me for this
delinquency, my father remarked: "That boy will
never amount to anything." This must have been a
terrible affront to my ambition, for allusions to this
scene recur again and again in my dreams, and are
constantly coupled with enumerations of my
accomplishments and successes, as though I wanted
to say: "You see, I have amounted to something
after all." This childish scene furnishes the elements
for the last image of the dream, in which the roles
are interchanged, of course for the purpose ofrevenge. The elderly man obviously my father, for

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 468the blindness in one eye signifies his one-sided
glaucoma,[29] is now urinating before me as I once
urinated before him. By means of the glaucoma I
remind my father of cocaine, which stood him in
good stead during his operation, as though I had
thereby fulfilled my promise. Besides, I make sport
of him; since he is blind, I must hold the glass in
front of him, and I delight in allusions to my
knowledge of the theory of hysteria, of which I amproud.[30]
If the two childish scenes of urination are,
according to my theory, closely associated with the
desire for greatness, their resuscitation on the
journey to the Aussee was further favoured by the
accidental circumstance that my compartment had
no lavatory, and that I must be prepared to
postpone relief during the journey, as actually
happened in the morning when I woke with the
sensation of a bodily need. I suppose one might be
inclined to credit this sensation with being the actualstimulus of the dream; I should, however, prefer a

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 469different explanation, namely, that the dream-
thoughts first gave rise to the desire to urinate. It is
quite unusual for me to be disturbed in sleep by any
physical need, least of all at the time when I woke
on this occasion- a quarter to four in the morning. I
would forestall a further objection by remarking that
I h a v e h a r d l y e v e r f e l t a d e s i r e t o u r i n a t e a f t e r
waking early on other journeys made under more
comfortable circumstances. However, I can leavethis point undecided without weakening my
argument.
Further, since experience in dream-analysis
has drawn my attention to the fact that even from
dreams the interpretation of which seems at first
sight complete, because the dream-sources and the
wish- stimuli are easily demonstrable, important
trains of thought proceed which reach back into the
earliest years of childhood, I had to ask myself
whether this characteristic does not even constitute
an essential condition of dreaming. If it werepermissible to generalize this notion, I should say

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 470that every dream is connected through its manifest
content with recent experiences, while through its
latent content it is connected with the most remote
experiences; and I can actually show in the analysis
of hysteria that these remote experiences have in a
very real sense remained recent right up to the
present. But I still find it very difficult to prove this
conjecture; I shall have to return to the probable
role in dream-formation of the earliest experiencesof our childhood in another connection (chapter VII).
Of the three peculiarities of the dream-
memory considered above, one- the preference for
the unimportant in the dream-content- has been
satisfactorily explained by tracing it back to dream
distortion. We have succeeded in establishing the
existence of the other two peculiarities- the
preferential selection of recent and also of infantile
material- but we have found it impossible to derive
them from the motives of the dream. Let us keep in
mind these two characteristics, which we still haveto explain or evaluate; a place will have to be found

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 471for them elsewhere, either in the discussion of the
psychology of the sleeping state, or in the
consideration of the structure of the psychic
apparatus- which we shall undertake later after we
have seen that by means of dream-interpretation we
are able to glance as through an inspection- hole
into the interior of this apparatus.
But here and now I will emphasize another
result of the last few dream-analyses. The dreamoften appears to have several meanings; not only
may several wish-fulfilments be combined in it, as
our examples show, but one meaning or one wish-
fulfilment may conceal another. until in the lowest
stratum one comes upon the fulfilment of a wish
from the earliest period of childhood; and here again
it may be questioned whether the word often at the
beginning of this sentence may not more correctly
be replaced by constantly.[31]

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 472Footnotes
[1] It is evident that Robert's idea- that the
dream is intended to rid our memory of the useless
impressions which it has received during the day- is
no longer tenable if indifferent memories of our
childhood appear in our dreams with some degree of
frequency. We should be obliged to conclude that
our dreams generally perform their prescribed task
very inadequately.
[2] Cf. The Psycho-pathology of Everyday
Life.
[3] The tendency of the dream at work to
blend everything present of interest into a single
transaction has already been noticed by several
authors, for instance, by Delage and Delboeuf.
[4] The dream of Irma's injection; the
dream of the friend who is my uncle.
[5] The dream of the funeral oration
delivered by the young physician.
[6] The dream of the botanical monograph.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 473[7] The dreams of my patients during
analysis are mostly of this kind.
[8] Cf. Chap. VII on "transference."
[9] Havelock Ellis, a kindly critic of The
Interpretation of Dreams, writes in The World of
Dreams (p. 169): "From this point on, not many of
us will be able to follow F." But Mr. Ellis has not
undertaken any analyses of dreams, and will not
believe how unjustifiable it is to judge them by themanifest dream-content. –
[10] Cf. what is said of speech in dreams in
the chapter on "The Dream-Work." Only one of the
writers on the subject- Delboeuf- seems to have
recognized the origin of the speeches heard in
dreams; he compares them with cliches.
[11] For the curious, I may remark that
behind the dream there is hidden a phantasy of
indecent, sexually provoking conduct on my part,
and of repulsion on the part of the lady. If this
interpretation should seem preposterous, I wouldremind the reader of the numerous cases in which

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 474physicians have been made the object of such
charges by hysterical women, with whom the same
phantasy has not appeared in a distorted form as a
dream, but has become undisguisedly conscious and
delusional. With this dream the patient began her
psycho-analytical treatment. It was only later that I
learned that with this dream she repeated the initial
trauma in which her neurosis originated, and since
then I have noticed the same behaviour in otherpersons who in their childhood were victims of
sexual attacks, and now, as it were, wish in their
dreams for them to be repeated.
[12] A substitution by the opposite, as will
be clear after analysis.
[13] I long ago learned that the fulfilment of
such wishes only called for a little courage, and I
then became a zealous pilgrim to Rome. –
[14] The writer in whose works I found this
passage was probably Jean Paul Richter. –
[15] In the first edition of this book I gave
here the name "Hasdrubal," an amazing error, which

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 475I explained in my Psycho pathology of Everyday Life.
–
[16] The Jewish descent of the Marshal is
somewhat doubtful. –
[17] In the original this paragraph contains
many plays on the word Hetz (hurry, chase, scurry,
game, etc.).- TR. –
[18] Fensterln is the custom, now falling into
disuse, found in rural districts of the GermanSchwarzwald, of lovers who woo their sweethearts
at their bedroom windows, to which they ascend by
means of a ladder, enjoying such intimacy that the
relation practically amounts to a trial marriage. The
reputation of the young woman never suffers on
account of Fensterln, unless she becomes intimate
with too many suitors.- TR. –
[19] Both the affects pertaining to these
childish scenes- astonishment and resignation to the
inevitable- appeared in a dream of slightly earlier
date, which first reminded me of this incident of mychildhood.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 476[20] I do not bring in the plagiostomi
arbitrarily; they recall a painful incident of disgrace
before the same teacher.
[21] Popo = "backside," in German nursery
language. –
[22] This repetition has crept into the text of
the dream, apparently through absent-mindedness,
and I have left it because analysis shows that it has
a meaning. –
[23] This is an error and not a slip, for I
learned later that the Emmersdorf in Wachau is not
identical with the refuge of the revolutionist Fischof,
a place of the same name.
[24] Roses, tulips, and carnations, flowers
all will wither.
[25] Do not cry, little Isabella because your
flowers have faded.
[26] Not in Germinal, but in La Terre- a
mistake of which I became aware only in the
analysis. Here I would call attention to the identityof letters in Huflattich and Flatus.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 477[27] An unsolicited biographer, Dr. F.
Wittels, reproaches me for having omitted the name
of Jehovah from the above motto. The English medal
contains the name of the Deity, in Hebrew letters,
on the background of a cloud, and placed in such a
manner that one may equally well regard it as part
of the picture or as part of the inscription.
[28] Frauenzimmer, German, Zimmer-room,
is appended to Frauen-woman, in order to imply aslight contempt.- TR. –
[29] Another interpretation: He is one-eyed
like Odin, the father of the gods- Odin's consolation.
The consolation in the childish scene: I will buy him
a new bed.
[30] Here is some more material for
interpretation: Holding the urine-glass recalls the
story of a peasant (illiterate) at the optician's, who
tried on now one pair of spectacles, now another,
but was still unable to read.- (Peasant-catcher- girl-
catcher in the preceding portion of the dream.)- Thepeasants' treatment of the feeble-minded father in

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 478Zola's La Terre.- The tragic atonement, that in his
last days my father soiled his bed like a child;
hence, I am his nurse in the dream.- "Thinking and
experiencing are here, as it were, identical"; this
recalls a highly revolutionary closet drama by Oscar
Panizza, in which God, the Father, is ignominiously
treated as a palsied greybeard. With Him will and
deed are one, and in the book he has to be
restrained by His archangel, a sort of Ganymede,from scolding and swearing, because His curses
would immediately be fulfilled.- Making plans is a
reproach against my father, dating from a later
period in the development of the critical faculty,
much as the whole rebellious content of the dream,
which commits lese majeste and scorns authority,
may be traced to a revolt against my father. The
sovereign is called the father of his country
(Landesvater), and the father is the first and oldest,
and for the child the only authority, from whose
absolutism the other social authorities have evolvedin the course of the history of human civilization (in

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 479so far as mother-right does not necessitate a
qualification of this doctrine).- The words which
occurred to me in the dream, "thinking and
experiencing are the same thing," refer to the
explanation of hysterical symptoms with which the
male urinal (glass) is also associated.- I need not
explain the principle of Gschnas to a Viennese; it
consists in constructing objects of rare and costly
appearance out of trivial, and preferably comical andworthless material- for example, making suits of
armour out of kitchen utensils, wisps of straw and
Salzstangeln (long rolls), as our artists are fond of
doing at their jolly parties. I had learned that
hysterical subjects do the same thing; besides what
really happens to them, they unconsciously conceive
for themselves horrible or extravagantly fantastic
incidents, which they build up out of the most
harmless and commonplace material of actual
experience. The symptoms attach themselves
primarily to these phantasies, not to the memory ofreal events, whether serious or trivial. This

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 480explanation had helped me to overcome many
difficulties, and afforded me much pleasure. I was
able to allude to it by means of the dream-element
"male urine-glass," because I had been told that at
the last Gschnas evening a poison-chalice of Lucretia
Borgia's had been exhibited, the chief constituent of
which had consisted of a glass urinal for men, such
as is used in hospitals.
[31] The stratification of the meanings of
dreams is one of the most delicate but also one of
the most fruitful problems of dream interpretation.
Whoever forgets the possibility of such stratification
is likely to go astray and to make untenable
assertions concerning the nature of dreams. But
hitherto this subject has been only too imperfectly
investigated. So far, a fairly orderly stratification of
symbols in dreams due to urinary stimulus has been
subjected to a thorough evaluation only by Otto
Rank.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 481CHAPTER 5 (Part 2)
THE MATERIAL AND SOURCES OF DREAMS
C. The Somatic Sources of Dreams
If we attempt to interest a cultured layman
in the problems of dreams, and if, with this end in
view, we ask him what he believes to be the source
of dreams, we shall generally find that he feels quite
sure he knows at least this part of the solution. He
thinks immediately of the influence exercised on theformation of dreams by a disturbed or impeded
digestion ("Dreams come from the stomach"), an
accidental position of the body, a trifling occurrence
during sleep. He does not seem to suspect that even
after all these factors have been duly considered
something still remains to be explained.
In the introductory chapter we examined at
length the opinion of scientific writers on the role of
somatic stimuli in the formation of dreams, so that
here we need only recall the results of this inquiry.
We have seen that three kinds of somatic stimuli willbe distinguished: the objective sensory stimuli which

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 482proceed from external objects, the inner states of
excitation of the sensory organs, having only a
subjective reality, and the bodily stimuli arising
within the body; and we have also noticed that the
writers on dreams are inclined to thrust into the
background any psychic sources of dreams which
may operate simultaneously with the somatic
stimuli, or to exclude them altogether. In testing the
claims made on behalf of these somatic stimuli wehave learned that the significance of the objective
excitation of the sensory organs- whether accidental
stimuli operating during sleep, or such as cannot be
excluded from the dormant relation of these dream-
images and ideas to the internal bodily stimuli and
confirmed by experiment; that the part played by
the subjective sensory stimuli appears to be
demonstrated by the recurrence of hypnagogic
sensory images in dreams; and that, although the
broadly accepted relation of these dream-images
and ideas to the internal bodily stimuli cannot beexhaustively demonstrated, it is at all events

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 483confirmed by the well-known influence which an
excited state of the digestive, urinary and sexual
organs exercises upon the content of our dreams.
Nerve stimulus and bodily stimulus would
thus be the anatomical sources of dreams; that is,
according to many writers, the sole and exclusive
sources of dreams.
But we have already considered a number of
doubtful points, which seem to question not so muchthe correctness of the somatic theory as its
adequacy.
However confident the representatives of
this theory may be of its factual basis- especially in
respect of the accidental and external nerve stimuli,
which may without difficulty be recognized in the
dream-content- nevertheless they have all come
near to admitting that the rich content of ideas
found in dreams cannot be derived from the external
nerve-stimuli alone. In this connection Miss Mary
Whiton Calkins tested her own dreams, and those ofa second person, for a period of six weeks, and

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 484found that the element of external sensory
perception was demonstrable in only 13.2 per cent
and 6.7 percent of these dreams respectively. Only
two dreams in the whole collection could be referred
to organic sensations. These statistics confirm what
a cursory survey of our own experience would
already, have led us to suspect.
A distinction has often been made between
nerve-stimulus dreams which have already beenthoroughly investigated, and other forms of dreams.
Spitta, for example, divided dreams into
nervestimulus dreams and association-dreams. But
it was obvious that this solution remained
unsatisfactory unless the link between the somatic
sources of dreams and their ideational content could
be indicated.
In addition to the first objection, that of the
insufficient frequency of the external sources of
stimulus, a second objection presents itself, namely,
the inadequacy of the explanations of dreamsafforded by this category of dream-sources. There

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 485are two things which the representatives of this
theory have failed to explain: firstly, why the true
nature of the external stimulus is not recognized in
the dream, but is constantly mistaken for something
else; and secondly, why the result of the reaction of
the perceiving mind to this misconceived stimulus
should be so indeterminate and variable. We have
seen that Strumpell, in answer to these questions,
asserts that the mind, since it turns away from theouter world during sleep, is not in a position to give
the correct interpretation of the objective sensory
stimulus, but is forced to construct illusions on the
basis of the indefinite stimulation arriving from
many directions. In his own words (Die Natur und
Entstehung der Traume, p. 108).
"When by an external or internal nerve-
stimulus during sleep a feeling, or a complex of
feelings, or any sort of psychic process arises in the
mind, and is perceived by the mind, this process
calls up from the mind perceptual images belongingto the sphere of the waking experiences, that is to

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 486say, earlier perceptions, either unembellished, or
with the psychic values appertaining to them. It
collects about itself, as it were, a greater or lesser
number of such images, from which the impression
resulting from the nerve-stimulus receives its
psychic value. In this connection it is commonly
said, as in ordinary language we say of the waking
procedure, that the mind interprets in sleep the
impressions of nervous stimuli. The result of thisinterpretation is the socalled nerve-stimulus dream-
that is, a dream the components of which are
conditioned by the fact that a nerve-stimulus
produces its psychical effect in the life of the mind in
accordance with the laws of reproduction."
In all essential points identical with this
doctrine is Wundt's statement that the concepts of
dreams proceed, at all events for the most part,
from sensory stimuli, and especially from the stimuli
of general sensation, and are therefore mostly
phantastic illusions- probably only to a small extentpure memoryconceptions raised to the condition of

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 487hallucinations. To illustrate the relation between
dream-content and dream-stimuli which follows from
this theory, Strumpell makes use of an excellent
simile. It is "as though ten fingers of a person
ignorant of music were to stray over the keyboard of
an instrument." The implication is that the dream is
not a psychic phenomenon, originating from psychic
motives, but the result of a physiological stimulus,
which expresses itself in psychic symptomatologybecause the apparatus affected by the stimulus is
not capable of any other mode of expression. Upon
a similar assumption is based the explanation of
obsessions which Meynert attempted in his famous
simile of the dial on which individual figures are
most deeply embossed.
Popular though this theory of the somatic
dream-stimuli has become, and seductive though it
may seem, it is none the less easy to detect its weak
point. Every somatic dream-stimulus which provokes
the psychic apparatus in sleep to interpretation bythe formation of illusions may evoke an incalculable

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 488number of such attempts at interpretation. It may
consequently be represented in the dream- content
by an extraordinary number of different
concepts.[32] But the theory of Strumpell and
Wundt cannot point to any sort of motive which
controls the relation between the external stimulus
and the dream-concept chosen to interpret it, and
therefore it cannot explain the "peculiar choice"
which the stimuli "often enough make in the courseof their productive activity" (Lipps, Grundtatsachen
des Seelen-lebens, p. 170). Other objections may be
raised against the fundamental assumption behind
the theory of illusions- the assumption that during
sleep the mind is not in a condition to recognize the
real nature of the objective sensory stimuli. The old
physiologist Burdach shows us that the mind is quite
capable even during sleep of a correct interpretation
of the sensory impressions which reach it, and of
reacting in accordance with this correct
interpretation, inasmuch as he demonstrates thatcertain sensory impressions which seem important

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 489to the individual may be excepted from the general
neglect of the sleeping mind (as in the example of
nurse and child), and that one is more surely
awakened by one's own name than by an indifferent
auditory impression; all of which presupposes, of
course, that the mind discriminates between
sensations, even in sleep. Burdach infers from these
observations that we must not assume that the
mind is incapable of interpreting sensory stimuli inthe sleeping state, but rather that it is not
sufficiently interested in them. The arguments which
Burdach employed in 1830 reappear unchanged in
the works of Lipps (in the year 1883), where they
are employed for the purpose of attacking the
theory of somatic stimuli. According to these
arguments the mind seems to be like the sleeper in
the anecdote, who, on being asked, "Are you
asleep?" answers "No," and on being again
addressed with the words: "Then lend me ten
florins," takes refuge in the excuse: "I am asleep."

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 490The inadequacy of the theory of somatic
dream-stimuli may be further demonstrated in
another way. Observation shows that external
stimuli do not oblige me to dream, even though
these stimuli appear in the dream-content as soon
as I begin to dream- supposing that I do dream. In
response to a touch or pressure stimulus
experienced while I am asleep, a variety of reactions
are at my disposal. I may overlook it, and find onwaking that my leg has become uncovered, or that I
have been lying on an arm; indeed, pathology offers
me a host of examples of powerfully exciting
sensory and motor stimuli of different kinds which
remain ineffective during sleep. I may perceive the
sensation during sleep, and through my sleep, as it
were, as constantly happens in the case of pain
stimuli, but without weaving the pain into the
texture of a dream. And thirdly, I may wake up in
response to the stimulus, simply in order to avoid it.
Still another, fourth, reaction is possible: namely,that the nervestimulus may cause me to dream; but

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 491the other possible reactions occur quite as
frequently as the reaction of dream-formation. This,
however, would not be the case if the incentive to
dreaming did not lie outside the somatic dream-
sources.
Appreciating the importance of the above-
mentioned lacunae in the explanation of dreams by
somatic stimuli, other writers- Scherner, for
example, and, following him, the philosopherVolkelt- endeavoured to determine more precisely
the nature of the psychic activities which cause the
many-coloured images of our dreams to proceed
from the somatic stimuli, and in so doing they
approached the problem of the essential nature of
dreams as a problem of psychology, and regarded
dreaming as a psychic activity. Scherner not only
gave a poetical, vivid and glowing description of the
psychic peculiarities which unfold themselves in the
course of dream-formation, but he also believed that
he had hit upon the principle of the method themind employs in dealing with the stimuli which are

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 492offered to it. The dream, according to Scherner, in
the free activity of the phantasy, which has been
released from the shackles imposed upon it during
the day, strives to represent symbolically the nature
of the organ from which the stimulus proceeds. Thus
there exists a sort of dream-book, a guide to the
interpretation of dreams, by means of which bodily
sensations, the conditions of the organs, and states
of stimulation, may be inferred from the dream-images. "Thus the image of a cat expressed extreme
ill-temper; the image of pale, smooth pastry the
nudity of the body. The human body as a whole is
pictured by the phantasy of the dream as a house,
and the individual organs of the body as parts of the
house. In toothache-dreams a vaulted vestibule
corresponds to the mouth, and a staircase to the
descent from the pharynx to the oesophagus; in the
headache-dream a ceiling covered with disgusting
toad-like spiders is chosen to denote the upper part
of the head." "Many different symbols are employedby our dreams for the same organ: thus the

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 493breathing lung finds its symbol in a roaring stove,
filled with flames, the heart in empty boxes and
baskets, and the bladder in round, bag-shaped or
merely hollow objects. It is of particular significance
that at the close of the dream the stimulating organ
or its function is often represented without disguise
and usually on the dreamer's own body. Thus the
toothache-dream commonly ends by the dreamer
drawing a tooth out of his mouth." It cannot be saidthat this theory of dream-interpretation has found
much favour with other writers. It seems, above all,
extravagant; and so Scherner's readers have
hesitated to give it even the small amount of credit
to which it is, in my opinion, entitled. As will be
seen, it tends to a revival of dream-interpretation by
means of symbolism, a method employed by the
ancients; only the province from which the
interpretation is to be derived is restricted to the
human body. The lack of a scientifically
comprehensible technique of interpretation mustseriously limit the applicability of Scherner's theory.

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 494Arbitrariness in the interpretation of dreams would
appear to be by no means excluded, especially since
in this case also a stimulus may be expressed in the
dream-content by several representative symbols;
thus even Scherner's follower Volkelt was unable to
confirm the representation of the body as a house.
Another objection is that here again the dream-
activity is regarded as a useless and aimless activity
of the mind, since, according to this theory, themind is content with merely forming phantasies
around the stimulus with which it is dealing, without
even remotely attempting to abolish the stimulus.
Scherner's theory of the symbolization of
bodily stimuli by the dream is seriously damaged by
yet another objection. These bodily stimuli are
present at all times, and it is generally assumed that
the mind is more accessible to them during sleep
than in the waking state. It is therefore impossible
to understand why the mind does not dream
continuously all night long, and why it does notdream every night about all the organs. If one

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 495attempts to evade this objection by positing the
condition that special excitations must proceed from
the eye, the ear, the teeth, the bowels, etc., in order
to arouse the dream-activity, one is confronted with
the difficulty of proving that this increase of
stimulation is objective; and proof is possible only in
a very few cases. If the dream of flying is a
symbolization of the upward and downward motion
of the pulmonary lobes, either this dream, as hasalready been remarked by Strumpell, should be
dreamt much oftener, or it should be possible to
show that respiration is more active during this
dream. Yet a third alternative is possible- and it is
the most probable of all- namely, that now and
again special motives are operative to direct the
attention to the visceral sensations which are
constantly present. But this would take us far
beyond the scope of Scherner's theory.
The value of Scherner's and Volkelt's
disquisitions resides in their calling our attention to anumber of characteristics of the dream-content

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 496which are in need of explanation, and which seem to
promise fresh discoveries. It is quite true that
symbolizations of the bodily organs and functions do
occur in dreams: for example, that water in a dream
often signifies a desire to urinate, that the male
genital organ may be represented by an upright
staff, or a pillar, etc. With dreams which exhibit a
very animated field of vision and brilliant colours, in
contrast to the dimness of other dreams, theinterpretation that they are "dreams due to visual
stimulation" can hardly be dismissed, nor can we
dispute the participation of illusion-formation in
dreams which contain noise and a medley of voices.
A dream like that of Scherner's, that two rows of fair
handsome boys stood facing one another on a
bridge, attacking one another, and then resuming
their positions, until finally the dreamer himself sat
down on a bridge and drew a long tooth from his
jaw; or a similar dream of Volkelt's, in which two
rows of drawers played a part, and which againended in the extraction of a tooth; dream-

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 497formations of this kind, of which both writers relate
a great number, forbid our dismissing Scherner's
theory as an idle invention without seeking the
kernel of truth which may be contained in it. We are
therefore confronted with the task of finding a
different explanation of the supposed symbolization
of the alleged dental stimulus.
Throughout our consideration of the theory
of the somatic sources of dreams, I have refrainedfrom urging the argument which arises from our
analyses of dreams. If, by a procedure which has
not been followed by other writers in their
investigation of dreams, we can prove that the
dream possesses intrinsic value as psychic action,
that a wish supplies the motive of its formation, and
that the experiences of the previous day furnish the
most obvious material of its content, any other
theory of dreams which neglects such an important
method of investigation- and accordingly makes the
dream appear a useless and enigmatical psychicreaction to somatic stimuli- may be dismissed

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 498without special criticism. For in this case there would
have to be- and this is highly improbable- two
entirely different kinds of dreams, of which only one
kind has come under our observation, while the
other kind alone has been observed by the earlier
investigators. It only remains now to find a place in
our theory of dreams for the facts on which the
current doctrine of somatic dream-stimuli is based.
We have already taken the first step in this
direction in advancing the thesis that the dream-
work is under a compulsion to elaborate into a
unified whole all the dream-stimuli which are
simultaneously present (chapter V., A, above). We
have seen that when two or more experiences
capable of making an impression on the mind have
been left over from the previous day, the wishes
that result from them are united into one dream;
similarly, that the impressions possessing psychic
value and the indifferent experiences of the previous
day unite in the dream-material, provided thatconnecting ideas between the two can be

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 499established. Thus the dream appears to be a
reaction to everything which is simultaneously
present as actual in the sleeping mind. As far as we
have hitherto analysed the dreammaterial, we have
discovered it to be a collection of psychic remnants
and memory-traces, which we were obliged to credit
(on account of the preference shown for recent and
for infantile material) with a character of
psychological actuality, though the nature of thisactuality was not at the time determinable. We shall
now have little difficulty in predicting what will
happen when to these actualities of the memory
fresh material in the form of sensations is added
during sleep. These stimuli, again, are of importance
to the dream because they are actual; they are
united with the other psychic actualities to provide
the material for dream-formation. To express it in
other words, the stimuli which occur during sleep
are elaborated into a wish-fulfilment, of which the
other components are the psychic remnants of dailyexperience with which we are already familiar. This

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Nalanda Digital Library Etext Conversion Project 500combination, however, is not inevitable; we have
seen that more than one kind of behaviour toward
the physical stimuli received during sleep is possible.
Where this combination is effected, a conceptual
material for the dream-content has been found
which will represent both kinds of dream-sources,
the somatic as well as the psychic.
The nature of the dream is not altered when
somatic material is added to the psychic dream-sources; it still remains a wish fulfilment, no matter
how its expression is determined by the actual
material available.
I should like to find room here for a number
of peculiarities which are able to modify the
significance of external stimuli for the dream. I
imagine that a co-operation of individual,
physiological and accidental factors, which depend
on the circumstances of the moment, determines
how one will behave in individual cases of more
intensive objective stimulation during sleep; habitualor accidental profundity of sleep, in conjunction with