PREFACE

TO THE THIRD (GERMAN) EDITION

WHEREAS 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 Inter-
pretation 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 neuro-
ses; 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.
I have endeavoured to deal with these innovations by inter-
polations in the text and footnotes. If these additions do not
always quite adjust themselves to the framework of the treatise,
or if the earlier text does not everywhere come up to the stan-
dard 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 it must deal more faithfully than has hitherto

¹Omitted in subsequent editions.

II

PREFACE

been possible 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

PREFACE
TO THE SECOND (GERMAN) EDITION

THAT there should have been a demand for a second edition
of this book—a book which cannot be described 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 aroused by my novel conception
of the dream; and the professional philosophers, who are
anyhow accustomed to disposing of the dream in a few sen-
tences—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 deduc-
tions, such as must lead to a fundamental modification of our
psychological doctrines. The attitude of the scientific reviewers
was such as to lead me to expect that the fate of the book would
be to fall into oblivion; and the little flock of faithful adherents,
who follow my lead 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