Sigmund Freud

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 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.

Sigmund Freud, 1900

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. But the very context to which our subject owes its importance must be held responsible for the deficiencies 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 dreams has 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 the intervention of neurotic characters. And if I relate my 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 by omissions 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! The Interpretation of Dreams CHAPTER 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 a specific 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. I 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 subject that 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 the formation of their conceptions of the universe, and of 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 dreaminterpretation 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 in the content of dreams, and in the impressions which they 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 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 the deepest and densest psychic deposits which later years 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 the dream-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 all 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 bridgeguard. 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 course," 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 dreamt that 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 difference, 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...

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1992

DIRECT INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS: TYPOLOGY I.eland van den Daele Freud's general formulation of dream genesis, upon which he appears to hinge his theory of dreams, is his assertion that a dream is the product of the "disguised fulfillment of a suppressed or repressed wish" (1900, p. 160). This formulation is the cornerstone of his clinical theory. The clinical theory assumes that psychological conflict is at the basis of neurosis, and that psychological conflict is exactly modeled in the dream. That is, the dream is the laboratory of neurosis. In a general review of Freud's theory of dream interpretation, it is useful to distinguish a theory of genesis and a theory of translation. The theory of genesis addresses the source and the motivational foundation of dreams. The theory of translation deals with the mechanics of dream interpretation, much in the same way as grammars and dictionaries provide rules and referents for the translation of languages. In the general literature on Freud's theory, the theory of genesis and the theory of translation are treated as interdependent and overlapping. Nevertheless, the theories may be disentangled, just as what is written and the question of why it was written may be distinguished. The problem with a wish fulfillment theory is that it constrains. In the limits it imposes, the dream is permitted only a self-oriented, affect-laden aim that tends toward discharge. If the imagistic language of dreams is understood as a general language that may express any variety of meaning, Freud's constraint is analogous to a constraint on the writing of English that it should only concern topics that suggest or lead to sensual release. The contention that a dream, including Freud's dream of Irma's Injection, represents more than the fulfillment of a wish is furthered by investi-Portions of this paper were delivered at the Eleventh Annual Spring Meeting of the American Psychological Association Division of Psychoanalysis. Chicago, Illinois: April 1991. My gratitude to students and patients for use of their dreams.

Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2001

Freud was proud of The Interpretation of Dreams. In the preface to the third English edition (1932), he called it "the most valuable of all the discoveries it has been my good fortune to make" (Freud, /1953b, p. xxxii), p. xxxii). Convinced of its central importance to his work, he revised and expanded six of the eight editions that appeared during his lifetime. These revisions go far beyond the well-known additions concerning the extent and significance of symbolism in dreams, as has demonstrated so well. Even if one does not agree with Ritchie Robertson that "the original dream theory is based on a much more flexible and sensitive interpretation of dream imagery" (p. xxxviii), it is still instructive to read the considerably shorter Interpretation of Dreams that Freud sent into the world in November 1899. Because the publication of this translation coincided with the publication of a facsimile edition of the German first edition , readers can now easily compare Joyce Crick's work with the original. Strachey's notes in the Standard Edition have allowed readers to reconstruct most of the changes in the later editions, but Crick's translation reveals that Strachey did not record "every alteration of substance introduced into the book since its first issue" (Freud, /1953b, p. xx), p. xx). Freud came to regard this book as part of his self-analysis, and a large part of its fascination stems from its autobiographical revelations, as intimate as anything in works that he published. Consequently, an "alteration of substance" does not necessarily mean a modification of the argument or

2001