Part 6 (1/2)

Moreover, inversion, or transformation into the opposite, is one of the most favoured and most versatile methods of representation which the dream-work has at its disposal. It serves, in the first place, to enable the wish-fulfilment to prevail against a definite element of the dream-thoughts. 'If only it were the other way about!' is often the best expression for the reaction of the ego against a disagreeable recollection. But inversion becomes extraordinarily useful in the service of the censors.h.i.+p, for it effects, in the material to be represented, a degree of distortion which at first simply paralyses our understanding of the dream. It is therefore always permissible, if a dream stubbornly refuses to surrender its meaning, to venture on the experimental inversion of definite portions of its manifest content. Then, not infrequently, everything becomes clear.

Besides the inversion of content, the temporal inversion must not be overlooked. A frequent device of dream-distortion consists in presenting the final issue of the event or the conclusion of the train of thought at the beginning of the dream, and appending at the end of the dream, and appending at the end of the dream the premises of the conclusion, or the causes of the event. Anyone who forgets this technical device of dream-distortion stands helpless before the problem of dream-interpretation.5 In many cases, indeed, we discover the meaning of the dream only when we have subjected the dream-content to a multiple inversion, in accordance with the different relations. For example, in the dream of a young patient who is suffering from obsessional neurosis, the memory of the childish death-wish directed against a dreaded father concealed itself behind the following words: His father scolds him because he comes home so late, but the context of the psychoa.n.a.lytic treatment and the impressions of the dreamer show that the sentence must be read as follows: He is angry with his father, and further, that his father always came home too early (i.e. too soon). He would have preferred that his father should not come home at all, which is identical with the wish (see p. 143 ff.) that his father would die. As a little boy, during the prolonged absence of his father, the dreamer was guilty of a s.e.xual aggression against another child, and was punished by the threat: 'Just you wait until your father comes home!'

If we should seek to trace the relations between the dream-content and the dream-thoughts a little farther, we shall do this best by making the dream itself our point of departure, and asking ourselves: What do certain formal characteristics of the dream-presentation signify in relation to the dream-thoughts? First and foremost among the formal characteristics which are bound to impress us in dreams are the differences in the sensory intensity of the single dream-images, and in the distinctness of various parts of the dream, or of whole dreams as compared with one another. The differences in the intensity of individual dream images cover the whole gamut, from a sharpness of definition which one is inclined -- although without warrant -- to rate more highly than that of reality, to a provoking indistinctness which we declare to be characteristic of dreams, because it really is not wholly comparable to any of the degrees of indistinctness which we occasionally perceive in real objects. Moreover, we usually describe the impression which we receive of an indistinct object in a dream as 'fleeting', while we think of the more distinct dream-images as having been perceptible also for a longer period of time. We must now ask ourselves by what conditions in the dream-material these differences in the distinctness of the individual portions of the dream-content are brought about.

Before proceeding farther, it is necessary to deal with certain expectations which seem to be almost inevitable. Since actual sensations experienced during sleep may const.i.tute part of the dream-material, it will probably be a.s.sumed that these sensations, or the dream-elements resulting from them, are emphasised by a special intensity, or conversely, that anything which is particularly vivid in the dream can probably be traced to such real sensations during sleep. My experience, however, has never confirmed this. It is not true that those elements of a dream which are derivatives of real impressions perceived in sleep (nerve stimuli) are distinguished by their special vividness from others which are based on memories. The factor of reality is inoperative in determining the intensity of dream-images.

Further, it might be expected that the sensory intensity (vividness) of single dream-images is in proportion to the psychic intensity of the elements corresponding to them in the dream-thoughts. In the latter, intensity is identical with psychic value; the most intense elements are in fact the most significant, and these const.i.tute the central point of the dream-thoughts. We know, however, that it is precisely these elements which are usually not admitted to the dream-content, owing to the vigilance of the censors.h.i.+p. Still, it might be possible for their most immediate derivatives, which represent them in the dream, to reach a higher degree of intensity without, however, for that reason const.i.tuting the central point of the dream-representation. This a.s.sumption also vanishes as soon as we compare the dream and the dream-material. The intensity of the elements in the one has nothing to do with the intensity of the elements in the other; as a matter of fact, a complete 'transvaluation of all psychic values' takes place between the dream-material and the dream. The very element of the dream which is transient and hazy, and screened by more vigorous images, is often discovered to be the one and only direct derivative of the topic that completely dominates the dream-thoughts.

The intensity of the dream-elements proves to be determined in a different manner: that is, by two factors which are mutually independent. It will readily be understood that those elements by means of which the wish-fulfilment expresses itself are those which are intensely represented. But a.n.a.lysis tells us that from the most vivid elements of the dream the greatest number of trains of thought proceed, and that those which are most vivid are at the same time those which are best determined. No change of meaning is involved if we express this latter empirical proposition in the following formula: The greatest intensity is shown by those elements of the dream for whose formation the most extensive condensation-work was required. We may, therefore, expect that it will be possible to express this condition, as well as the other condition of the wish-fulfilment in a single formula.

I must utter a warning that the problem which I have just been considering -- the causes of the greater or lesser intensity or distinctness of single elements in dreams -- is not to be confounded with the other problem -- that of variations in the distinctness of whole dreams or sections of dreams. In the former case the opposite of distinctness is haziness; in the latter, confusion. It is, of course, undeniable that in both scales the two kinds of intensities rise and fall in unison. A portion of the dream which seems clear to us usually contains vivid elements; an obscure dream, on the contrary, is composed of less vivid elements. But the problem offered by the scale of definition, which ranges from the apparently clear to the indistinct or confused, is far more complicated than the problem of the fluctuations in vividness of the dream-elements. For reasons which will be given later, the former cannot at this stage be further discussed. In isolated cases one observes, not without surprise, that the impression of distinctness or indistinctness produced by a dream has nothing to do with the dream-structure, but proceeds from the dream-material, as one of its ingredients. Thus, for example, I remember a dream which on waking seemed so particularly well-constructed, flawless and clear that I made up my mind, while I was still in a somnolent state, to admit a new category of dreams -- those which had not been subject to the mechanism of condensation and distortion, and which might thus be described as 'fantasies during sleep.' A closer examination, however, proved that this unusual dream suffered from the same structural flaws and breaches as exist in all other dreams; so I abandoned the idea of a category of 'dream-fantasies'.6 The content of the dream, reduced to its lowest terms, was that I was expounding to a friend a difficult and long-sought theory of bis.e.xuality, and the wish-fulfilling power of the dream was responsible for the fact that this theory (which, by the way, was not communicated in the dream) appeared to be so lucid and flawless. Thus, what I believed to be a judgment as regards the finished dream was a part, and indeed the most essential part, of the dream-content. Here the dream-work reached out, as it were, into my first waking thoughts, and presented to me, in the form of a judgment of the dream, that part of the dream-material which it had failed to represent with precision in the dream. I was once confronted with the exact counterpart of this case by a female patient who at first absolutely declined to relate a dream which was necessary for the a.n.a.lysis 'because it was so hazy and confused', and who finally declared, after repeatedly protesting the inaccuracy of her description, that it seemed to her that several persons -- herself, her husband, and her father -- had occurred in the dream, and that she had not known whether her husband was her father, or who really was her father, or something of that sort. Comparison of this dream with the ideas which occurred to the dreamer in the course of the sitting showed beyond a doubt that it dealt with the rather commonplace story of a maidservant who has to confess that she is expecting a child, and hears doubts expressed as to 'who the father really is'.7 The obscurity manifested by this dream, therefore, was once more a portion of the dream-exciting material. A fragment of this material was represented in the form of the dream. The form of the dream or of dreaming is employed with astonis.h.i.+ng frequency to represent the concealed content.

Glosses on the dream, and seemingly harmless comments on it, often serve in the most subtle manner to conceal -- although, of course, they really betray -- a part of what is dreamed. As, for example, when the dreamer says: Here the dream was wiped out, and the a.n.a.lysis gives an infantile reminiscence of listening to someone cleaning himself after defecation. Or another example, which deserves to be recorded in detail: A young man has a very distinct dream, reminding him of fantasies of his boyhood which have remained conscious. He found himself in a hotel at a seasonal resort; it was night; he mistook the number of his room, and entered a room in which an elderly lady and her two daughters were undressing to go to bed. He continues: 'Then there are some gaps in the dream; something is missing; and at the end there was a man in the room, who wanted to throw me out, and with whom I had to struggle.' He tries in vain to recall the content and intention of the boyish fantasy to which the dream obviously alluded. But we finally become aware that the required content had already been given in his remarks concerning the indistinct part of the dream. The 'gaps' are the genital apertures of the women who are going to bed: 'Here something is missing' describes the princ.i.p.al characteristic of the female genitals. In his young days he burned with curiosity to see the female genitals, and was still inclined to adhere to the infantile s.e.xual theory which attributes a male organ to women.

A very similar form was a.s.sumed in an a.n.a.logous reminiscence of another dreamer. He dreamed: I go with Fraulein K. into the restaurant of the Volksgarten . . . then comes a dark place, an interruption . . . then I find myself in the salon of a brothel, where I see two or three women, one in a chemise and drawers.

a.n.a.lysis. -- Fraulein K. is the daughter of his former employer; as he himself admits, she was a sister-subst.i.tute. He rarely had the opportunity of talking to her, but they once had a conversation in which 'one recognised one's s.e.xuality, so to speak, as though one were to say: I am a man and you are a woman.' He had been only once to the above-mentioned restaurant, when he was accompanied by the sister of his brother-in-law, a girl to whom he was quite indifferent. On another occasion he accompanied three ladies to the door of the restaurant. The ladies were his sister, his sister-in-law, and the girl already mentioned. He was perfectly indifferent to all three of them, but they all belonged to the 'sister category'. He had visited a brothel but rarely, perhaps two or three times in his life.

The interpretation is based on the 'dark place', the 'interruption' in the dream, and informs us that on occasion, but in fact only rarely, obsessed by his boyish curiosity, he had inspected the genitals of his sister, a few years his junior. A few days later the misdemeanour indicated in the dream recurred to his conscious memory.

All dreams of the same night belong, in respect of their content, to the same whole; their division into several parts, their grouping and number, are all full of meaning and may be regarded as pieces of information about the latent dream-thoughts. In the interpretation of dreams consisting of several main sections, or of dreams belonging to the same night, we must not overlook the possibility that these different and successive dreams mean the same thing, expressing the same impulses in different material. That one of these h.o.m.ologous dreams which comes first in time is usually the most distorted and most bashful, while the next dream is bolder and more distinct.

Even Pharaoh's dream of the ears and the kine, which Joseph interpreted, was of this kind. It is given by Josephus in greater detail than in the Bible. After relating the first dream, the King said: 'After I had seen this vision I awaked out of my sleep, and, being in disorder, and considering with myself what this appearance should be, I fell asleep again, and saw another dream much more wonderful than the foregoing, which still did more affright and disturb me.' After listening to the relation of the dream, Joseph said: 'This dream, O King, although seen under two forms, signifies one and the same event of things.'8 Jung, in his Beitrag sur Psychologie des Geruchtes, relates how a veiled erotic dream of a schoolgirl was understood by her friends without interpretation, and continued by them with variations, and he remarks, with reference to one of these narrated dreams, 'that the concluding idea of a long series of dream-images had precisely the same content as the first image of the series had endeavoured to represent. The censors.h.i.+p thrust the complex out of the way as long as possible by a constant renewal of symbolic screenings, displacements, transformations into something harmless, etc.' Scherner was well acquainted with this peculiarity of dream-representation, and describes it in his Leben des Traumes in terms of a special law in the Appendix to his doctrine of organic stimulation: 'But finally, in all symbolic dream-formations emanating from definite nerve stimuli, the fantasy observes the general law that at the beginning of the dream it depicts the stimulating object only by the remotest and freest allusions, but towards the end, when the graphic impulse becomes exhausted, the stimulus itself is nakedly represented by its appropriate organ or its function; whereupon the dream, itself describing its organic motive, achieves its end . . .'

A pretty confirmation of this law of Scherner's has been furnished by Otto Rank in his essay Ein Traum, der sich selbst deutet. This dream, related to him by a girl, consisted of two dreams of the same night, separated by an interval of time, the second of which ended with an o.r.g.a.s.m. It was possible to interpret this orgastic dream in detail in spite of the few ideas contributed by the dreamer, and the wealth of relations between the two dream-contents made it possible to recognise that the first dream expressed in modest language the same thing as the second, so that the latter -- the orgastic dream -- facilitated a full explanation of the former. From this example, Rank very justifiably argues the significance of orgastic dreams for the theory of dreams in general.

But in my experience it is only in rare cases that one is in a position to translate the lucidity or confusion of a dream, respectively, into a certainty or doubt in the dream-material. Later on I shall have to disclose a hitherto unmentioned factor in dream-formation, upon whose operation this qualitative scale in dreams is essentially dependent.

In many dreams in which a certain situation and environment are preserved for some time, there occur interruptions which may be described in the following words: 'But then it seemed as though it were, at the same time, another place, and there such and such a thing happened.' In these cases what interrupts the main action of the dream, which after a while may be continued again, reveals itself in the dream-material as a subordinate clause, an interpolated thought. Conditionality in the dream-thoughts is represented by simultaneity in the dream-content (wenn or wann = if or when, while).

We may now ask, What is the meaning of the sensation of inhibited movement which so often occurs in dreams, and is so closely allied to anxiety? One wants to move, and is unable to stir from the spot; or wants to accomplish something, and encounters obstacle after obstacle. The train is about to start, and one cannot reach it; one's hand is raised to avenge an insult, and its strength fails, etc. We have already met with this sensation in exhibition-dreams, but have as yet made no serious attempt to interpret it. It is convenient, but inadequate, to answer that there is motor paralysis in sleep, which manifests itself by means of the sensation alluded to. We may ask: 'Why is it, then, that we do not dream continually of such inhibited movements?' And we may permissibly suspect that this sensation, which may at any time occur during sleep, serves some sort of purpose for representation, and is evoked only when the need of this representation is present in the dream-material.

Inability to do a thing does not always appear in the dream as a sensation; it may appear simply as part of the dream-content. I think one case of this kind is especially fitted to enlighten us as to the meaning of this peculiarity. I shall give an abridged version of a dream in which I seem to be accused of dishonesty. The scene is a mixture made up of a private sanatorium and several other places. A manservant appears, to summon me to an inquiry. I know in the dream that something has been missed, and that the inquiry is taking place because I am suspected of having appropriated the lost article. a.n.a.lysis shows that inquiry is to be taken in two senses; it includes the meaning of medical examination. Being conscious of my innocence, and my position as consultant in this sanatorium, I calmly follow the manservant. We are received at the door by another manservant who says, pointing at me, 'Have you brought him? Why, he is a respectable man.' Thereupon, and unattended, I enter a great hall where there are many machines, which reminds me of an inferno with its h.e.l.lish instruments of punishment. I see a colleague strapped to an appliance; he has every reason to be interested in my appearance, but he takes no notice of me. I understand that I may now go. Then I cannot find my hat, and cannot go after all.

The wish that the dream fulfils is obviously the wish that my honesty shall be acknowledged, and that I may be permitted to go; there must therefore be all sorts of material in the dream-thoughts which comprise a contradiction of this wish. The fact that I may go is the sign of my absolution; if, then, the dream provides at its close an event which prevents me from going, we may readily conclude that the suppressed material of the contradiction is a.s.serting itself in this feature. The fact that I cannot find my hat therefore means: 'You are not after all an honest man.' The inability to do something in the dream is the expression of a contradiction, a 'No'; so that our earlier a.s.sertion, to the effect that the dream is not capable of expressing a negation, must be revised accordingly.9 In other dreams in which the inability to do something occurs, not merely as a situation, but also as a sensation, the same contradiction is more emphatically expressed by the sensation of inhibited movement, or a will to which a counter-will is opposed. Thus the sensation of inhibited movement represents a conflict of will. We shall see later on that this very motor paralysis during sleep is one of the fundamental conditions of the psychic process which functions during dreaming. Now an impulse which is conveyed to the motor system is none other than the will, and the fact that we are certain that this impulse will be inhibited in sleep makes the whole process extraordinarily well-adapted to the representation of a will towards something and of a 'No' which opposes itself thereto. From my explanation of anxiety, it is easy to understand why the sensation of the inhibited will is so closely allied to anxiety, and why it is so often connected with it in dreams. Anxiety is a libidinal impulse which emanates from the unconscious and is inhibited by the preconscious.10 Therefore, when a sensation of inhibition in the dream is accompanied by anxiety, the dream must be concerned with a volition which was at one time capable of arousing libido; there must be a s.e.xual impulse.

As for the judgment which is often expressed during a dream: 'Of course, it is only a dream', and the psychic force to which it may be ascribed, I shall discuss these questions later on. For the present I will merely say that they are intended to depreciate the importance of what is being dreamed. The interesting problem allied to this, as to what is meant if a certain content in the dream is characterised in the dream itself as having been 'dreamed' -- the riddle of a 'dream within a dream' -- has been solved in a similar sense by W. Stekel, by the a.n.a.lysis of some convincing examples. Here again the part of the dream 'dreamed' is to be depreciated in value and robbed of its reality; that which the dreamer continues to dream after waking from the 'dream within a dream' is what the dream-wish desires to put in place of the obliterated reality. It may therefore be a.s.sumed that the part 'dreamed' contains the representation of the reality, the real memory, while, on the other hand, the continued dream contains the representation of what the dreamer merely wishes. The inclusion of a certain content in 'a dream within a dream' is therefore equivalent to the wish that what has been characterised as a dream had never occurred. In other words: when a particular incident is represented by the dream-work in a 'dream', it signifies the strongest confirmation of the reality of this incident, the most emphatic affirmation of it. The dream-work utilises the dream itself as a form of repudiation, and thereby confirms the theory that a dream is a wish-fulfilment.

1 I have since given the complete a.n.a.lysis and synthesis of two dreams in the Bruchstuck einer Hysteriea.n.a.lyse, 1905 (Ges. Schriften, Bd. viii). Fragment of an a.n.a.lysis of a Case of Hysteria, translated by Strachey, Collected Papers, vol. iii, Hogarth Press, London. O. Rank's a.n.a.lysis, Ein Traum der sich selbst deutet, deserves mention as the most complete interpretation of a comparatively long dream.

2 From a work of K. Abel's Der Gegensinn der Urworte, 1884 (see my review of it in the Bleuler-Freud Jahrbuch, ii, 1910 (Ges. Schriften, Bd. x), I learned the surprising fact, which is confirmed by other philologists, that the oldest languages behaved just as dreams do in this regard. They had originally only one word for both extremes in a series of qualities or activities (strong-weak, old-young, far-near, bind-separate), and formed separate designations for the two opposites only secondarily, by slight modifications of the common primitive word. Abel demonstrates a very large number of those relations.h.i.+ps in ancient Egyptian, and points to distinct remnants of the same development in the Semitic and Indo-Germanic languages.

3 cf. here the observations made on pp. 161ff.

4 If I do not know behind which of the persons appearing in the dream I am to look for my ego, I observe the following rule: That person in the dream who is subject to an emotion which I am aware of while asleep is the one that conceals my ego.

5 The hysterical attack often employs the same device of temporal inversion in order to conceal its meaning from the observer. The attack of a hysterical girl, for example, consists in enacting a little romance, which she has imagined in the unconscious in connection with an encounter in a tram. A man, attracted by the beauty of her foot, addresses her while she is reading, whereupon she goes with him and a pa.s.sionate love-scene ensues. Her attack begins with the representation of this scene by writhing movements of the body (accompanied by movements of the lips and folding of the arms to signify kisses and embraces), whereupon she hurries into the next room, sits down on a chair, lifts her skirt in order to show her foot, acts as though she were about to read a book, and speaks to me (answers me). Cf. the observation of Artemidorus: 'In interpreting dreamstories one must consider them the first time from the beginning to the end, and the second time from the end to the beginning.'

6 I do not know today whether I was justified in doing so.

7 Accompanying hysterical symptoms, amenorrhoea and profound depression were the chief troubles of this patient.

8 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book ii, chap. v, trans. by Wm. Whiston, David McKay, Philadelphia.

9 A reference to an experience of childhood emerges, in the complete a.n.a.lysis, through the following connecting links: 'The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go.' And then follows the waggish question: 'How old is the Moor when he has done his duty?' -- 'A year, then he can go (walk).' (It is said that I came into the world with so much black curly hair that my mother declared that I was a little Moor.) The fact that I cannot find my hat is an experience of the day which has been exploited in various senses. Our servant, who is a genius at stowing things away, had hidden the hat. A rejection of melancholy thoughts of death is concealed behind the conclusion of the dream: 'I have not nearly done my duty yet; I cannot go yet.' Birth and death together -- as in the dream of Goethe and the paralytic, which was a little earlier in date.

10 This theory is not in accordance with more recent views.

D. REGARD FOR REPRESENTABILITY.

We have hitherto been concerned with investigating the manner in which our dreams represent the relations between the dream-thoughts, but we have often extended our inquiry to the further question as to what alterations the dream-material itself undergoes for the purposes of dream-formation. We now know that the dream-material, after being stripped of a great many of its relations, is subjected to compression, while at the same time displacements of the intensity of its elements enforce a psychic transvaluation of this material. The displacements which we have considered were shown to be subst.i.tutions of one particular idea for another, in some way related to the original by its a.s.sociations, and the displacements were made to facilitate the condensation, inasmuch as in this manner, instead of two elements, a common mean between them found its way into the dream. So far no mention has been made of any other kind of displacement. But we learn from the a.n.a.lyses that displacement of another kind does occur, and that it manifests itself in an exchange of the verbal expression for the thought in question. In both cases we are dealing with a displacement along a chain of a.s.sociations, but the same process takes place in different psychic spheres, and the result of this displacement in the one case is that one element is replaced by another, while in the other case an element exchanges its verbal shape for another.

This second kind of displacement occurring in dream-formation is not only of great theoretical interest, but is also peculiarly well-fitted to explain the appearance of fantastic absurdity in which dreams disguise themselves. Displacement usually occurs in such a way that a colourless and abstract expression of the dream-thought is exchanged for one that is pictorial and concrete. The advantage, and along with it the purpose, of this subst.i.tution is obvious. Whatever is pictorial is capable of representation in dreams and can be fitted into a situation in which abstract expression would confront the dream-representation with difficulties not unlike those which would arise if a political leading article had to be represented in an ill.u.s.trated journal. Not only the possibility of representation, but also the interests of condensation and of the censors.h.i.+p, may be furthered by this exchange. Once the abstractly expressed and unserviceable dream-thought is translated into pictorial language, those contacts and ident.i.ties between this new expression and the rest of the dream-material which are required by the dream-work, and which it contrives whenever they are not available, are more readily provided, since in every language concrete terms, owing to their evolution, are richer in a.s.sociations than are abstract terms. It may be imagined that a good part of the intermediate work in dream-formation, which seeks to reduce the separate dream-thoughts to the tersest and most unified expression in the dream, is effected in this manner, by fitting paraphrases of the various thoughts. The one thought whose mode of expression has perhaps been determined by other factors will therewith exert a distributive and selective influence on the expressions available for the others, and it may even do this from the very start, just as it would in the creative activity of a poet. When a poem is to be written in rhymed couplets, the second rhyming line is bound by two conditions: it must express the meaning allotted to it, and its expression must permit of a rhyme with the first line. The best poems are, of course, those in which one does not detect the effort to find a rhyme, and in which both thoughts have as a matter of course, by mutual induction, selected the verbal expression which, with a little subsequent adjustment, will permit of the rhyme.

In some cases the change of expression serves the purposes of dream-condensation more directly, in that it provides an arrangement of words which, being ambiguous, permits of the expression of more than one of the dream-thoughts. The whole range of verbal wit is thus made to serve the purpose of the dream-work. The part played by words in dream-formation ought not to surprise us. A word, as the point of junction of a number of ideas, possesses, as it were, a predestined ambiguity, and the neuroses (obsessions, phobias) take advantage of the opportunities for condensation and disguise afforded by words quite as eagerly as do dreams.1 That dream-distortion also profits by this displacement of expression may be readily demonstrated. It is indeed confusing if one ambiguous word is subst.i.tuted for two with single meanings, and the replacement of sober, everyday language by a plastic mode of expression baffles our understanding, especially since a dream never tells us whether the elements presented by it are to be interpreted literally or metaphorically, whether they refer to the dream-material directly, or only by means of interpolated expressions. Generally speaking, in the interpretation of any element of a dream it is doubtful whether it (a) is to be accepted in the negative or the positive sense (contrast relation);

(b) is to be interpreted historically (as a memory);

(c) is symbolic; or whether

(d) its valuation is to be based upon its wording.

In spite of this versatility, we may say that the representation effected by the dream-work, which was never even intended to be understood, does not impose upon the translator any greater difficulties than those that the ancient writers of hieroglyphics imposed upon their readers.

I have already given several examples of dream-representations which are held together only by ambiguity of expression ('her mouth opens without difficulty', in the dream of Irma's injection; 'I cannot go yet after all', in the last dream related, etc.). I shall now cite a dream in the a.n.a.lysis of which plastic representation of the abstract thoughts plays a greater part. The difference between such dream-interpretation and the interpretation by means of symbols may nevertheless be clearly defined; in the symbolic interpretation of dreams the key to the symbolism is selected arbitrarily by the interpreter, while in our own cases of verbal disguise these keys are universally known and are taken from established modes of speech. Provided one hits on the right idea on the right occasion, one may solve dreams of this kind, either completely or in part, independently of any statements made by the dreamer.

A lady, a friend of mine, dreams: She is at the opera. It is a Wagnerian performance, which has lasted until 7.45 in the morning. In the stalls and pit there are tables, at which people are eating and drinking. Her cousin and his young wife, who have just returned from their honeymoon, are sitting at one of these tables; beside them is a member of the aristocracy. The young wife is said to have brought him back with her from the honeymoon quite openly, just as she might have brought back a hat. In the middle of the stalls there is a high tower, on the top of which there is a platform surrounded by an iron railing. There, high overhead, stands the conductor, with the features of Hans Richter, continually running round behind the railing, perspiring terribly; and from this position he is conducting the orchestra, which is arranged round the base of the tower. She herself is sitting in a box with a friend of her own s.e.x (known to me). Her younger sister tries to hand her up, from the stalls, a large lump of coal, alleging that she had not known that it would be so long, and that she must by this time be miserably cold. (As though the boxes ought to have been heated during the long performance.) Although in other respects the dream gives a good picture of the situation, it is, of course, nonsensical enough: the tower in the middle of the stalls, from which the conductor leads the orchestra, and above all the coal which her sister hands up to her. I purposely asked for no a.n.a.lysis of this dream. With some knowledge of the personal relations of the dreamer, I was able to interpret parts of it independently of her. I knew that she had felt intense sympathy for a musician whose career had been prematurely brought to an end by insanity. I therefore decided to take the tower in the stalls verbally. It then emerged that the man whom she wished to see in the place of Hans Richter towered above all the other members of the orchestra. This tower must be described as a composite formation by means of apposition; by its substructure it represents the greatness of the man, but by the railing at the top, behind which he runs round like a prisoner or an animal in a cage (an allusion to the name of the unfortunate man2), it represents his later fate. 'Lunatic-tower' is perhaps the expression in which the two thoughts might have met.

Now that we have discovered the dream's method of representation, we may try, with the same key, to unlock the meaning of the second apparent absurdity, that of the coal which her sister hands up to the dreamer. 'Coal' should mean 'secret love'.

No fire, no coal so hotly glows As the secret love of which no one knows.