217

IV
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 easily
refuted. Dreams which present the most painful content, and not the
least trace of wish-
fulfilment, occur frequently enough. The pessimis-
tic philosopher, Eduard von Hartmann, is perhaps most completely op-
posed to the theory of wish-
fulfilment. In his Philosophy of the Un-
conscious, Part II (Stereotyped German edition, s. 344), he says: ‘As
regards 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 rec-
oncile 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 worked out, 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 per cent. positively
pleasant. Besides those dreams that convey into our sleep the many pain-
ful 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
found the wish-
fulfilment dream in its most obvious form.”
The anxiety-
dream does really seem to preclude a generalization of the

¹Already 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).

218

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 in-
terpret 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 wish-fulfilments.¹

In 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 con-
fronted 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 inter-
pretation, 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 as fulfilled. The
reader will not have received this impression, 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 phe-
nomenon 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

¹It is quite incredible with what obstinacy readers and critics have excluded this
consideration and disregarded the fundamental differentiation between the manifest
and the latent dream-content. 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 non-
sense they have been said to be by such authorities as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and
Milton. The chaotic aggregations of our night-fancy have a significance and com-
municate new knowledge, like some letter in cipher, the dream-inscription, when
scrutinized closely ioses its first look of balderdash and takes on the aspect of a seri-
ous 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).

219

solutions might suggest themselves: for example, that during sleep one is
incapable of finding an adequate expression for one’s dream-
thoughts. The analysis of certain dreams, however, compels us to offer another ex-
planation. I shall demonstrate this by means of a second dream of my
own, which again involves numerous indiscretions, but which compen-
sates for this personal sacrifice by affording a thorough elucidation of the
problem.

Preliminary Statement.—In the spring of 1897 I learnt that two pro-
fessors of our university had proposed me for the title of Professor Ex-
traordinarius (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. I had 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 grapes to be sweet or sour did not matter, since they un-
doubtedly 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 the authorities 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 re-
ligious 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 which was calculated to confirm me in my resig-
nation. For the 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.

720

I. My friend R. is my uncle—I have a great affection for him.
I. 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 man-
ner:

When I recollected the dream in the course of the morning, I laughed
outright and said, “The dream 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-interpre-
tation 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 same thing 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 pro-
ceeded with the interpretation.

“R. is my uncle.” What can that mean? I had only one uncle, my uncle
Joseph.¹ 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 transac-
tions 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 been 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 the glory 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

¹It is astonishing to see how my memory here restricts itself—in the waking state!
—for the purposes of analysis. I have known five of my uncles and 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.”

221

plate. No doubt is now possible; 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 relation-
ship. 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 make the com-
parison ridiculous. Here I recollect another conversation, which I had some
days ago with another colleague, N.; as a matter of fact, on the same sub-
ject. I met N. in the street; he, too, has been nominated for a professor-
ship, and having heard that I had been similarly honoured he congratu-
lated 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 ear-
nest: “You can’t be sure of that. There is a special objection in my case.
Don’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
of my 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 representa-
tion. 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 unaf-
fected. This is the procedure followed by my dream: it makes the one
friend, R., a simpleton, and the 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
by the 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 be-
lieve 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 prepara-

222

tion of propyl administered by Otto. Here, as before, what the dream ex-
presses is only my wish that things might 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 estab-
lishing 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 depart-
ment, and my friend N. had himself, all unsuspectingly, provided me with
material for the calumny. Nevertheless, I repeat, it still seems to me that
the dream requires further elucida-
tion.

I remember now that the dream contained yet another portion which
has hitherto been ignored by the inter-
pretation. 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 affec-
tion. R. has for many years been a
dearly loved friend, but if I were to go to him and express my affection
for him in terms approaching 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 be-
long to the latent content, to the thoughts behind the dream; it stands in
opposition to this content: it is calculated to conceal the knowledge con-
veyed by the interpretation. Probably this is precisely its function. I re-
member with what reluctance I undertook the interpretation, how long
I tried to postpone it, and how I declared the dream to be sheer non-
sense. I know from my psychoanalytic practice how such a condemna-
tion is to be interpreted. It has no informative value, but merely ex-
presses an affect. If my little daughter does not like an apple which is
offered her, she asserts that the apple is bitter, without even tasting it.
If my patients 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 inter-
pret it because there is something in the interpre-
tation to which I object. After the interpretation of the dream is com-
pleted, 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, but rather to this unwillingness of mine.
If my dream, as compared with its latent content, is dis-
guised at this
point, and actually misrepre-
sents things by producing their opposites,
then the manifest affection in the dream serves the purpose of the mis-
representation; in other words, the distortion is here shown to be inten-
tional—it is a means of disguise. My dream-thoughts of R. are deroga-
 

223

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

tory, and so that I may not become aware of this the very opposite of
defamation—a tender affection for him—enters into the dream.

This 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 unrecogniz-
able 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
social life 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. The poet even complains
of the necessity of such misrepresentation: “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 contre-
tempt between two Chinese mandarins, while he really has in mind the
officials of his own country. The stricter the domination of the censorship,
the more thorough becomes the disguise, and, often enough, the more in-
genious 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 cause of 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 exer-
cise its censorship? If we remember that the latent dream-
thoughts are

224

not conscious before analysis, but that the manifest dream-content emerg-
ing from them is consciously remembered, it is not a far-fetched assump-
tion that admittance to the consciousness 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 modifica-
tions as are pleasing to itself upon the candidates for admission to con-
sciousness. Here we arrive at a very definite conception of the “essence”
of consciousness; for us the state of becoming 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 psychopathology 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 rela-
tion to the consciousness, I find in the sphere of politics a perfectly appro-
priate 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 then
deliberately 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.¹

We may now perhaps begin to suspect that dream-interpretation is
capable of yielding information concerning the structure of our psychic
apparatus which we have hitherto vainly expected from philosophy. We
shall not, however, follow up this trail, but shall return to our original

¹Such 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, by a somewhat confusing dream which has as its content a rec-
onciliation 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 encour-
agement 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 tender-
ness (“Typisches Beispiel eines verkappten Oedipusträumes,” Zentralblatt für
Psychoanalyse, Bd. I, Heft 1–11, 1910). Another class of hypocritical dreams will be
recorded in another place (see Chap. vi, The Dream-Work).

228

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

problem as soon as we have elucidated the problem of dream-
distortion. The question arose, how dreams with a disagreeable content can be ana-
lysed as wish-fulfilments. We see now that this is possible where a dream-
distortion has occurred, when the disagreeable content serves only to dis-
guise the thing wished for. With regard to our assumptions respecting the
two psychic instances, we can now also say that disagreeable dreams con-
tain, as a matter of fact, something which is disagreeable to the second
instance, but which at the same time fulfils 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.¹ Were we to limit ourselves to a
consideration of what the second instance contributes to the dream we
should never understand the dream, and all the problems which the writ-
ers 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-fulfilment, 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, which
therefore 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 regu-
larly, as I have said, become a theme of our conversations. I must there-
fore give him all the psychological explanations with whose aid I myself
have succeeded in understanding his symptoms. And here I encounter un-
sparing criticism, which is perhaps no less shrewd than that which I have
to expect from my colleagues. With perfect uniformity my patients con-
tradict the doctrine that dreams are the fulfilments of wishes. Here are
several examples of the sort of dream-material which is adduced in refuta-
tion of my theory.

“You are always saying that a dream is a wish fulfilled,” begins an in-
telligent lady patient. “Now I shall tell you a dream in which the content
is quite the opposite, in which a wish of mine is not fulfilled. 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
¹⁾ Later on we shall become acquainted with cases in which, on the contrary, the
dream expresses a wish of this second instance.

226

dream, although I admit that at first sight it seems sensible and coherent
and looks like the opposite of a wish-
fulfilment. “But what 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 sales-
man, had told her the day before that he was growing too fat, and that he
meant to undergo treatment for obesity. He would rise early, take physi-
cal 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’hôte, had made the acquaintance of an artist, who insisted upon paint-
ing 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 was quite
convinced that a bit of a pretty young girl’s posterior would please the
artist better than his whole face.¹⁾—She is very much in love with her hus-
band, and teases him a good deal. She has asked him not to give her any
caviar. What can that mean?

As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long time to eat a caviare
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 not to 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 something similar to this in
the case of my patient’s caviar. I see that in waking life she is compelled
to invent an unfulfilled wish. Her dream also shows her the non-fulfilment
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 she is 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.”

¹To sit for the painter.

Goethe: “And if he has no backside,
How can the nobleman sit?”

221

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

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 my house and
get fat and become still more pleasing to my 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 the solution. 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 favor-
ite 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 excellent example of the usual ambiguity of
dreams, as of all other psychopathological 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 eat caviar sandwiches). Her friend,
too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get fatter, and it would not sur-
prise 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 of this, however,
she dreamt that one of her own wishes was not fulfilled. The dream be-
comes 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 ex-
haustive exposition is necessary. Identification is a highly important mo-
tive 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
symptoms which 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

228

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 uncon-
scious end-process, as an example will show. The physician who has, in
the same ward with other patients, a female patient suffering from a
particular kind of twitching, is not surprised 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 physi-
cian knows about any one of them, and they are concerned about one an-
other when the doctor’s visit is over. One of them has an attack 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 al-
though it does not emerge into consciousness they form the following con-
clusion: “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, and consequently ends in the realization of the dreaded
symptoms. Thus identification is not mere imitation, but an assimilation
based upon the same etiological claim; it expresses a “just like,” and re-
fers 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 symp-
toms most readily—though not exclusively—with persons with 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)
by putting herself in her friend’s place in her dream, and identifying her-
self 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.¹

¹I myself regret the inclusion of such passages from the psychopathology 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 dreams and the psycho-
neuroses, they have served the intention with which I have included them.

229

The contradiction of my theory of dreams on the part of another female
patient, the most intelligent of all my dreamers, was solved in a simpler
fashion, though still in accordance with the principle that the non-fulfil-
ment of one wish signified the fulfilment of another. I had one day ex-
plained 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 fortunately
been able to avoid doing so, since she had recently succeeded 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. Ac-
cording 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. But the wish that
I should be wrong, which was fulfilled in the theme of the country house,
inferred 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 those 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 lec-
ture of mine, delivered to a small audience, on the novel idea that dreams
are wish-fulfilments. He went home, dreamt that he had lost all his law-
suits—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 in contradiction of my theory of the wish-dream. This
patient, 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

230

before me. He was lying in his little coffin, his hands folded; there were
candles all about; 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 the 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 culmination was frus-
trated 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 trans-
fer her love to the other suitors who successively presented themselves.
Whenever the man she loved, who was a member of the literary profes-
sion, announced a lecture anywhere, she was certain to be found among
the audience; and she seized every other opportunity of seeing him un-
observed. 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 now easily 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 once more under the
same circumstances as before. The dream signifies nothing more than this
wish of yours to see him again—a wish against which you are fighting in-
wardly. I know that you have the ticket for to-day’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

231

which wishes of the sor-
ful 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 an-
other 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 which occurred to her during treatment. In
the course of a longer dream, it seemed to this lady that she saw her fif-
teen-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.¹⁾ For in the course of the analy-
sis it occurred to her that on the previous evening the conversation of the
people in whose company she found 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 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 Büchse, and had then
been haunted by the recollection that Büchse is used in vulgar parlance to
denote the female genitals. It was therefore possible, treating her knowl-
edge of topographical anatomy with a certain indulgence, to assume 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 actu-
ally 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
had even 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 to show by new examples
that in spite of their undesirable content all these dreams must be inter-
preted 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.

¹⁾As in the dream of the deferred supper and the smoked salmon.

232

“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 as a 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.”¹⁾—“And under what circum-
stances did you dream this? What happened on the evening before?”—
“I would rather not tell you—it is a delicate matter.”—“But I need it,
otherwise 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 normal coitus?”—“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 re-
member, a few days ago we were talking about the troubles of matrimony,
and about the inconsistency of permitting coitus so long as no impregna-
tion 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 mediæval 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 puts infan-
ticide and birth-control on the same plane.”—“Strangely enough, I hap-
pened, 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

¹⁾It often happens that a dream is told incompletely, and that a recollection of the
omitted portions appears only in the course of the analysis. These portions, when sub-
sequently fitted in, invariably furnish the key to the interpretation. Cf. Chapter VII,
on forgetting in dreams.

233

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

perhaps more than one explanation. From my essay on the etiology of
anxiety neurosis, you will see that I note coitus interruptus as one of the
factors responsible for the development of neurotic fear. It would be con-
sistent 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 com-
position 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 in-
volved 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 must have been painful to you.”

A 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 pre-
vious day he had furnished a statement of his income; a quite straight-
forward statement, because he had little to state. He dreamt that an ac-
quaintance of his came from a meeting of the tax commission and informed
him that all the other statements had passed unquestioned, but that his
own had aroused general suspicion, with the result that he would be pun-
ished 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 into consideration the
discomforts predicted for this marriage; 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 part in 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

234

a wish-fulfilment.¹ 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 shall recount from among those oc-
curring in the course of treatment 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 dream; 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. Stärcke)
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 Stärcke, proves to be “the represen-
tative of wish-fulfilments charged with intense emotion.”²

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
the sexual constitution of many persons there is a masochistic com-
ponent, which has arisen through the conversion of the aggressive, sa-
distic component into its opposite. Such people are called “ideal” maso-
chists 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
satisfy their masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream: A young

¹Similar “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.”

²Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, Jahrg. II, 1911–12.

235

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

man, who in earlier youth greatly tormented his elder brother, toward
whom he was homosexually inclined, but who has since undergone a com-
plete 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 busi-
ness the management of which the young man had reserved for his own
future. From this last dream he awakens with the most unpleasant feel-
ings; and yet it is a masochistic wish-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 suf-
fered 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.¹⁾ Nor should it be
considered a mere matter 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; everyone has wishes
which he would not like to confess to others, 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 the censorship. We shall have included everything
which the analysis of disagreeable dreams has brought to light if we re-
word our formula thus: The dream is the (disguised) fulfilment of a
(suppressed, repressed) wish.²⁾

¹⁾I will here observe that we have not yet disposed of this theme; we shall discuss
it again later.

²⁾A great contemporary poet, who, I am told, will hear nothing of psychoanalysis
and dream-interpretation, has nevertheless derived from his own experience an al-
most identical formula for the nature of the dream: “Unauthorized emergence of sup-
pressed yearnings under false features and names” (C. Spitteler, Meine frühesten
Erlebnisse, in Süddeutsche Monatshefte, October, 1913).

I will here anticipate by citing the amplification and modification of this funda-
mental formula propounded by Otto Rank: “On the basis of and with the aid of
repressed infantile-sexual material, dreams regularly represent as fulfilled current, and
as a rule also erotic, wishes in a disguised and symbolic form” (Ein Traum, der sich
selbst deutet).

236

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 to analysis, we become aware
that the dream-anxiety is 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 the phobia applies also
to the anxiety-dream. In either case the anxiety is only fastened on to
the idea which accompanies it, and is really 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,¹⁾ written in 1895, I maintain that neu-
rotic anxiety has its origin in the sexual life, and corresponds to a libido
which has been deflected from its object and has found no employment.
The accuracy of this formula has since then 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
—

Nowhere have I said that I have accepted this formula of Rank’s. The shorter ver-
sion contained in the text seems to me sufficient. But the fact that I merely men-
tioned Rank’s modification was enough to expose psychoanalysis to the oft-repeated
reproach that it asserts that all dreams have a sexual content. If one understands this
sentence as it is intended to be understood, it only proves how little conscientious
ness 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 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 an absolute assertion. He says “as
a rule also erotic wishes,” 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 psychoanalysts. But the interesting
problem of whether all dreams are not produced by “libidinal” motives (in oppo-
sition to “destructive” ones) has hardly been considered by our opponents.

¹⁾Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses, p. 133, translated by A. A.
Brill, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, Monograph Series.

237

of neurotics. In my further attempts to arrive at a theory of dreams I
shall again have occasion to revert to the conditions of anxiety-dreams
and their compatibility with the theory of wish-fulfilment.