Part 26
Dream content: _I have written a monograph upon a (obscure) certain plant. The book lies before me, I am just turning over a folded coloured plate. A dried specimen of the plant is bound with every copy as though from a herbarium._
The most prominent element of this dream is the botanical monograph. This comes from the impressions received on the day of the dream; I had actually _seen a monograph on the genus “cyclamen”_ in the show-window of a book-store. The mention of this genus is lacking in the dream content, in which only the monograph and its relation to botany have remained. The “botanical monograph” immediately shows its relation to the work on cocaine which I had once written; thought connections proceed from cocaine on the one hand to a “Festschrift,” and on the other to my friend, the eye specialist, Dr. Koenigstein, who has had a share in the utilisation of cocaine. Moreover, with the person of this Dr. Koenigstein is connected the recollection of the interrupted conversation which I had had with him on the previous evening and of the manifold thoughts about remuneration for medical services among colleagues. This conversation, then, is properly the actual stimulus of the dream; the monograph about cyclamen is likewise an actuality but of an indifferent nature; as I soon see, the “botanical monograph” of the dream turns out to be a common mean between the two experiences of the day, and to have been taken over unchanged from an indifferent impression and bound up with the psychologically significant experience by means of the most abundant associations.
Not only the combined idea, “botanical monograph,” however, but also each of the separate elements, “botanical” and “monograph,” penetrates deeper and deeper into the confused tangle of the dream thoughts. To “botanical” belong the recollections of the person of Professor _Gartner_ (German: Gärtner = gardener), of his _blooming_ wife, of my patient whose name is _Flora_, and of a lady about whom I told the story of the forgotten _flowers_. _Gartner_, again, is connected with the laboratory and the conversation with _Koenigstein_; the mention of the two female patients also belongs to the same conversation. A chain of thoughts, one end of which is formed by the title of the hastily seen monograph, leads off in the other direction from the lady with the flowers to the _favourite flowers_ of my wife. Besides this, “botanical” recalls not only an episode at the Gymnasium, but an examination taken while I was at the university; and a new subject matter—my hobbies—which was broached in the conversation already mentioned, is connected by means of my humorously so-called _favourite flower_, the artichoke, with the chain of thoughts proceeding from the forgotten flowers; behind “artichoke” there is concealed on the one hand a recollection of Italy, and on the other a reminiscence of a childhood scene in which I first formed my connection with books which has since grown so intimate. “Botanical,” then, is a veritable nucleus, the centre for the dream of many trains of thought, which, I may assure the reader, were correctly and justly brought into relation to one another in the conversation referred to. Here we find ourselves in a thought factory, in which, as in the “Weaver’s Masterpiece”:
“One tread moves thousands of threads, The little shuttles fly back and forth, The threads flow on unseen, One stroke ties thousands of knots.”
“_Monograph_” in the dream, again, has a bearing upon two subjects, the one-sidedness of my studies and the costliness of my hobbies.
The impression is gained from this first investigation that the elements “botanical” and “monograph” have been accepted in the dream content because they were able to show the most extensive connections with the dream thoughts, and thus represent nuclei in which a great number of dream thoughts come together, and because they have manifold significance for the dream interpretation. The fact upon which this explanation is based may be expressed in another form: Every element of the dream content turns out to be _over-determined_—that is, it enjoys a manifold representation in the dream thoughts.
We shall learn more by testing the remaining component parts of the dream as to their occurrence in the dream thoughts. _The coloured plate_ refers (_cf._ the analysis on p. 145) to a new subject, the criticism passed upon my work by colleagues, and to a subject already represented in the dream—my hobbies—and also to a childish recollection in which I pull to pieces the book with the coloured plates; the dried specimen of the plant relates to an experience at the Gymnasium centering about and particularly emphasizing the herbarium. Thus I see what sort of relation exists between the dream content and dream thoughts: Not only do the elements of the dream have a manifold determination in the dream thoughts, but the individual dream thoughts are represented in the dream by many elements. Starting from an element of the dream the path of associations leads to a number of dream thoughts; and from a dream thought to several elements of the dream. The formation of the dream does not, therefore, take place in such fashion that a single one of the dream thoughts or a group of them furnishes the dream content with an abridgment as its representative therein, and that then another dream thought furnishes another abridgment as its representative—somewhat as popular representatives are elected from among the people—but the whole mass of the dream thoughts is subjected to a certain elaboration, in the course of which those elements that receive the greatest and completest support stand out in relief, analogous, perhaps, to election by _scrutins des listes_. Whatever dream I may subject to such dismemberment, I always find the same fundamental principle confirmed—that the dream elements are constructed from the entire mass of the dream thoughts and that every one of them appears in relation to the dream thoughts to have a multiple determination.
It is certainly not out of place to demonstrate this relation of the dream content to the dream thoughts by means of a fresh example, which is distinguished by a particularly artful intertwining of reciprocal relations. The dream is that of a patient whom I am treating for claustrophobia (fear in enclosed spaces). It will soon become evident why I feel myself called upon to entitle this exceptionally intellectual piece of dream activity in the following manner:
II. “_A Beautiful Dream_”
_The dreamer is riding with much company to X-street, where there is a modest road-house_ (which is not the fact). _A theatrical performance is being given in its rooms. He is first audience, then actor. Finally the company is told to change their clothes, in order to get back into the city. Some of the people are assigned to the rooms on the ground floor, others to the first floor. Then a dispute arises. Those above are angry because those below have not yet finished, so that they cannot come down. His brother is upstairs, he is below, and he is angry at his brother because there is such crowding._ (This part obscure.) _Besides it has already been decided upon their arrival who is to be upstairs and who down. Then he goes alone over the rising ground, across which X-street leads toward the city, and he has such difficulty and hardship in walking that he cannot move from the spot. An elderly gentleman joins him and scolds about the King of Italy. Finally, towards the end of the rising ground walking becomes much easier._
The difficulties experienced in walking were so distinct that for some time after waking he was in doubt whether they were dream or reality.
According to the manifest content, this dream can hardly be praised. Contrary to the rules, I shall begin with that portion which the dreamer referred to as the most distinct.
The difficulties which were dreamed of, and which were probably experienced during the dream—difficult climbing accompanied by dyspnœa—is one of the symptoms which the patient had actually shown years before, and which, in conjunction with other symptoms, was at that time attributed to tuberculosis (probably hysterically simulated). We are already from exhibition dreams acquainted with this sensation of being hindered, peculiar to the dream, and here again we find it used for the purpose of any kind of representation, as an ever-ready material. That part of the dream content which ascribes the climbing as difficult at first, and as becoming easier at the end of the hill, made me think while it was being told of the well-known masterful introduction to _Sappho_ by A. Daudet. Here a young man carries the girl whom he loves upstairs—she is at first as light as a feather; but the higher he mounts the more heavily she weighs upon his arm, and this scene symbolises a course of events by recounting which Daudet tries to warn young men not to waste serious affection upon girls of humble origin or of questionable past.[DI] Although I knew that my patient had recently had a love affair with a lady of the theatre, and had broken it off, I did not expect to find that the interpretation which had occurred to me was correct. Moreover, the situation in _Sappho_ was the _reverse_ of that in the dream; in the latter the climbing was difficult at the beginning and easy later on; in the novel the symbolism serves only if what was at first regarded as easy finally turns out to be a heavy load. To my astonishment, the patient remarked that the interpretation corresponded closely to the plot of a play which he had seen on the evening before at the theatre. The play was called _Round about Vienna_, and treated of the career of a girl who is respectable at first but later goes over to the _demi-monde_, who has affairs with persons in high places, thus “climbing,” but finally “goes down” faster and faster. This play had reminded him of another entitled _From Step to Step_, in the advertisement of which had appeared a _stairway_ consisting of several steps.
Now to continue the interpretation. The actress with whom he had had his most recent affair, a complicated one, had lived in X-street. There is no inn in this street. However, while he was spending a part of the summer in Vienna for the sake of the lady, he had lodged (German _abgestiegen_ = stopped, literally _stepped off_) at a little hotel in the neighbourhood. As he was leaving the hotel he said to the cab-driver, “I am glad I didn’t get any vermin anyway” (which incidentally is one of his phobias). Whereupon the cab-driver answered: “How could anybody stop there! It isn’t a hotel at all, it’s really nothing but a _road-house_!”
The road-house immediately suggests to the dreamer’s recollection a quotation:
“Of that marvellous host I was once a guest.”
But the host in the poem by Uhland is an apple tree. Now a second quotation continues the train of thought:
FAUST (_dancing with the young witch_).
“A lovely dream once came to me; I then beheld an apple tree, And there two fairest apples shone: They lured me so, I climbed thereon.”
THE FAIR ONE.
“Apples have been desired by you, Since first in Paradise they grew; And I am moved with joy to know That such within my garden grow.”
_Translated by_ BAYARD TAYLOR.
There remains not the slightest doubt what is meant by the apple tree and the apples. A beautiful bosom stood high among the charms with which the actress had bewitched our dreamer.
According to the connections of the analysis we had every reason to assume that the dream went back to an impression from childhood. In this case it must have reference to the nurse of the patient, who is now a man of nearly fifty years of age. The bosom of the nurse is in reality a road-house for the child. The nurse as well as Daudet’s Sappho appears as an allusion to his abandoned sweetheart.
The (elder) brother of the patient also appears in the dream content; he is upstairs, the dreamer himself is below. This again is an _inversion_, for the brother, as I happen to know, has lost his social position, my patient has retained his. In reporting the dream content the dreamer avoided saying that his brother was upstairs and that he himself was _down_. It would have been too frank an expression, for a person is said to be “down and out” when he has lost his fortune and position. Now the fact that at this point in the dream something is represented as inverted must have a meaning. The inversion must apply rather to some other relation between the dream thoughts and dream content. There is an indication which suggests how this inversion is to be taken. It obviously applies to the end of the dream, where the circumstances of climbing are the reverse of those in _Sappho_. Now it may easily be seen what inversion is referred to; in _Sappho_ the man carries the woman who stands in a sexual relation to him; in the dream thoughts, _inversely_, a woman carries a man, and as this state of affairs can only occur during childhood, the reference is again to the nurse who carries the heavy child. Thus the final portion of the dream succeeds in representing _Sappho_ and the nurse in the same allusion.
Just as the name _Sappho_ has not been selected by the poet without reference to a Lesbian custom, so the elements of the dream in which persons act _above_ and _below_, point to fancies of a sexual nature with which the dreamer is occupied and which as suppressed cravings are not without connection with his neurosis. Dream interpretation itself does not show that these are fancies and not recollections of actual happenings; it only furnishes us with a set of thoughts and leaves us to determine their value as realities. Real and fantastic occurrences at first appear here as of equal value—and not only here but also in the creation of more important psychic structures than dreams. Much company, as we already know, signifies a secret. The brother is none other than a representative, drawn into the childhood scene by “fancying backwards,” of all of the later rivals for the woman. Through the agency of an experience which is indifferent in itself, the episode with the gentleman who scolds about the King of Italy again refers to the intrusion of people of low rank into aristocratic society. It is as though the warning which Daudet gives to youth is to be supplemented by a similar warning applicable to the suckling child.[DJ]
In order that we may have at our disposal a third example for the study of condensation in dream formation, I shall cite the partial analysis of another dream for which I am indebted to an elderly lady who is being psychoanalytically treated. In harmony with the condition of severe anxiety from which the patient suffered, her dreams contained a great abundance of sexual thought material, the discovery of which astonished as well as frightened her. Since I cannot carry the interpretation of the dream to completion, the material seems to fall apart into several groups without apparent connection.
III. Content of the dream: _She remembers that she has two June bugs in a box, which she must set at liberty, for otherwise they will suffocate. She opens the box, and the bugs are quite exhausted; one of them flies out of the window, but the other is crushed on the casement while she is shutting the window, as some one or other requests her to do (expressions of disgust)._
Analysis: Her husband is away travelling, and her fourteen-year-old daughter is sleeping in the bed next to her. In the evening the little one calls her attention to the fact that a moth has fallen into her glass of water; but she neglects to take it out, and feels sorry for the poor little creature in the morning. A story which she had read in the evening told of boys throwing a cat into boiling water, and the twitchings of the animal were described. These are the occasions for the dream, both of which are indifferent in themselves. She is further occupied with the subject of _cruelty to animals_. Years before, while they were spending the summer at a certain place, her daughter was very cruel to animals. She started a butterfly collection, and asked her for arsenic with which to kill the butterflies. Once it happened that a moth flew about the room for a long time with a needle through its body; on another occasion she found that some moths which had been kept for metamorphosis had died of starvation. The same child while still at a tender age was in the habit of pulling out the wings of beetles and butterflies; now she would shrink in horror from these cruel actions, for she has grown very kind.
Her mind is occupied with this contrast. It recalls another contrast, the one between appearance and disposition, as it is described in _Adam Bede_ by George Eliot. There a beautiful but vain and quite stupid girl is placed side by side with an ugly but high-minded one. The aristocrat who seduces the little goose, is opposed to the working man who feels _aristocratic_, and behaves accordingly. It is impossible to tell character from people’s _looks_. Who could tell from _her_ looks that she is tormented by sensual desires?
In the same year in which the little girl started her butterfly collection, the region in which they were staying suffered much from a pest of June bugs. The children made havoc among the bugs, and _crushed_ them cruelly. At that time she saw a person who tore the wings off the June bugs and ate them. She herself had been born in June and also married in June. Three days after the wedding she wrote a letter home, telling how happy she was. But she was by no means happy.
During the evening before the dream she had rummaged among her old letters and had read various ones, comical and serious, to her family—an extremely ridiculous letter from a piano-teacher who had paid her attention when she was a girl, as well as one from an aristocratic admirer.[DK]
She blames herself because a bad book by de Maupassant had fallen into the hands of one of her daughters.[DL] The arsenic which her little girl asks for recalls the arsenic pills which restored the power of youth to the Duc de Mora in _Nabab_.
“Set at liberty” recalls to her a passage from the _Magic Flute_:
“I cannot compel you to love, But I will not give you your liberty.”
“June bugs” suggests the speech of Katie:[DM]
“I love you like a little beetle.”
Meanwhile the speech from _Tannhauser_: “For you are wrought with evil passion.”
She is living in fear and anxiety about her absent husband. The dread that something may happen to him on the journey is expressed in numerous fancies of the day. A little while before, during the analysis, she had come upon a complaint about his “senility” in her unconscious thoughts. The wish thought which this dream conceals may perhaps best be conjectured if I say that several days before the dream she was suddenly astounded by a command which she directed to her husband in the midst of her work: “_Go hang yourself_.” It was found that a few hours before she had read somewhere that a vigorous erection is induced when a person is hanged. It was for the erection which freed itself from repression in this terror-inspiring veiled form. “Go hang yourself” is as much as to say: “Get up an erection, at any cost.” Dr. Jenkin’s arsenic pills in _Nabab_ belong in this connection; for it was known to the patient that the strongest aphrodisiac, cantharides, is prepared by _crushing bugs_ (so-called Spanish flies). The most important part of the dream content has a significance to this effect.
Opening and shutting the _window_ is the subject of a standing quarrel with her husband. She herself likes to sleep with plenty of air, and her husband does not. _Exhaustion_ is the chief ailment of which she complains these days.
In all three of the dreams just cited I have emphasized by italics those phrases where one of the elements of the dream recurs in the dream thoughts in order to make the manifold references of the former obvious. Since, however, the analysis of none of these dreams has been carried to completion, it will be well worth while to consider a dream with a fully detailed analysis, in order to demonstrate the manifold determination of its content. I select the dream of Irma’s injection for this purpose. We shall see without effort in this example that the condensation work has used more than one means for the formation of the dream.
The chief person in the content of the dream is my patient Irma, who is seen with the features which belong to her in waking life, and who therefore in the first instance represents herself. But her attitude as I examine her at the window is taken from the recollection of another person, of the lady for whom I should like to exchange my patient, as the dream thoughts show. In as far as Irma shows a diphtheritic membrane which recalls my anxiety about my eldest daughter, she comes to represent this child of mine, behind whom is concealed the person of the patient who died from intoxication and who is brought into connection by the identity of her name. In the further course of the dream the significance of Irma’s personality changes (without the alteration of her image as it is seen in the dream); she becomes one of the children whom we examine in the public dispensaries for children’s diseases, where my friends show the difference of their mental capabilities. The transference was obviously brought about through the idea of my infant daughter. By means of her unwillingness to open her mouth the same Irma is changed into an allusion to another lady who was once examined by me, and besides that to my wife, in the same connection. Furthermore, in the morbid transformations which I discover in her throat I have gathered allusions to a great number of other persons.
All these people whom I encounter as I follow the associations suggested by “Irma,” do not appear personally in the dream; they are concealed behind the dream person “Irma,” who is thus developed into a collective image, as might be expected, with contradictory features. Irma comes to represent these other persons, who are discarded in the work of condensation, in that I cause to happen to her all the things which recall these persons detail for detail.
I may also construct a collective person for the condensation of the dream in another manner, by uniting the actual features of two or more persons in one dream image. It is in this manner that Dr. M. in my dream was constructed, he bears the name of Dr. M., and speaks and acts as Dr. M. does, but his bodily characteristics and his suffering belong to another person, my eldest brother; a single feature, paleness, is doubly determined, owing to the fact that it is common to both persons. Dr. R. in my dream about my uncle is a similar composite person. But here the dream image is prepared in still another manner. I have not united features peculiar to the one with features of the other, and thereby abridged the remembered image of each by certain features, but I have adopted the method employed by Galton in producing family portraits, by which he projects both pictures upon one another, whereupon the common features stand out in stronger relief, while those which do not coincide neutralize one another and become obscure in the picture. In the dream of my uncle the _blond beard_ stands out in relief, as an emphasized feature, from the physiognomy, which belongs to two persons, and which is therefore blurred; furthermore the beard contains an allusion to my father and to myself, which is made possible by its reference to the fact of growing grey.