68

VII.

WE have not exhausted our valuation of
the dream work. In addition to condensa-
tion, displacement, and definite arrange-
ment of the psychical matter, we must
ascribe to it yet another activity—one
which is, indeed, not shared by every
dream. I shall not treat this position of
the dream work exhaustively; I will only
point out that the readiest way to arrive at
a conception of it is to take for granted,
probably unfairly, that it only subsequently
influences the dream content which has already
been built up. Its mode of action thus con-
sists in so co-ordinating the parts of the
dream that these coalesce to a coherent
whole, to a dream composition. The dream
gets a kind of façade which, it is true, does
not conceal the whole of its content. There
is a sort of preliminary explanation to be

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ON DREAMS

strengthened by interpolations and slight
alterations. Such elaboration of the dream
content must not be too pronounced; the
misconception of the dream thoughts to
which it gives rise is merely superficial, and
our first piece of work in analysing a dream
is to get rid of these early attempts at inter-
pretation.

The motives for this part of the dream
work are easily gauged. This final elabora-
tion of the dream is due to a regard for in-
telligibility—a fact at once betraying the
origin of an action which behaves towards
the actual dream content just as our normal
psychical action behaves towards some
proffered perception that is to our liking.
The dream content is thus secured under the
pretence of certain expectations, is per-
ceptually classified by the supposition of its
intelligibility, thereby risking its falsifica-
tion, whilst, in fact, the most extraordinary
misconceptions arise if the dream can be
correlated with nothing familiar. Every-
one is aware that we are unable to look at

70

any series of unfamiliar signs, or to listen
to a discussion of unknown words, without
at once making perpetual changes through
our regard for intelligibility, through our
falling back upon what is familiar.

We can call those dreams properly made
up which are the result of an elaboration
in every way analogous to the psychical
action of our waking life. In other dreams
there is no such action; not even an attempt
is made to bring about order and meaning.
We regard the dream as “quite mad,”
because on awaking it is with this last-
named part of the dream work, the dream
elaboration, that we identify ourselves. So
far, however, as our analysis is concerned,
the dream, which resembles a med’ey of
disconnected fragments, is of as much value
as the one with a smooth and beautifully
polished surface. In the former case we
are spared, to some extent, the trouble of
breaking down the super-
elaboration of the
dream content.

All the same, it would be an error to see

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ON DREAMS

in the dream façade nothing but the mis-
understood and somewhat arbitrary elabor-
ation of the dream carried out at the in-
stance of our psychical life. Wishes and
phantasies are not infrequently employed in
the erection of this façade, which were
already fashioned in the dream thoughts;
they are akin to those of our waking life—
“day-dreams,” as they are very properly
called. These wishes and phantasies, which
analysis discloses in our dreams at night,
often present themselves as repetitions and
refashionings of the scenes of infancy.
Thus the dream façade may show us directly
the true core of the dream, distorted through
admixture with other matter.

Beyond these four activities there is
nothing else to be discovered in the dream
work. If we keep closely to the definition
that dream work denotes the transference
of dream thoughts to dream content, we
are compelled to say that the dream work
is not creative; it develops no fancies of its
own, it judges nothing, decides nothing. It

72

does nothing but prepare the matter for
condensation and displacement, and refash-
ions it for dramatisation, to which must be
added the inconstant last-named mechanism
—that of explanatory elaboration. It is
true that a good deal is found in the dream
content which might be understood as the
result of another and more intellectual per-
formance; but analysis shows conclusively
every time that these intellectual operations
were already present in the dream thoughts,
and have only been taken over by the dream
content. A syllogism in the dream is
nothing other than the repetition of a syllo-
gism in the dream thoughts; it seems in-
offensive if it has been transferred to the
dream without alteration; it becomes
absurd if in the dream work it has been
transferred to other matter. A calculation
in the dream content simply means that
there was a calculation in the dream
thoughts; whilst this is always correct, the
calculation in the dream can furnish the
silliest results by the condensation of its

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ON DREAMS

factors and the displacement of the same
operations to other things. Even speeches
which are found in the dream content are
not new compositions; they prove to be
pieced together out of speeches which have
been made or heard or read; the words are
faithfully copied, but the occasion of their
utterance is quite overlooked, and their
meaning is most violently changed.

It is, perhaps, not superfluous to support
these assertions by examples:

I. A seemingly inoffensive, well-made
dream of a patient. She was going to market
with her cook, who carried the basket. The
butcher said to her when she asked him for
something: “That is all gone,” and wished
to give her something else, remarking:
“That’s very good.” She declines, and goes
to the greengrocer, who wants to sell her a
peculiar vegetable which is bound up in
bundles and of a black colour. She says:
“I don’t know that; I won’t take it.”

The remark “That is all gone” arose
from the treatment. A few days before I

74

said myself to the patient that the earliest
reminiscences of childhood are all gone as
such, but are replaced by transferences and
dreams. Thus I am the butcher.

The second remark, “I don’t know that,”
arose in a very different connection. The
day before she had herself called out in
rebuke to the cook (who, moreover, also
appears in the dream): “Behave yourself
properly; I don’t know that”—that is, “I
don’t know this kind of behaviour; I won’t
have it.” The more harmless portion of
this speech was arrived at by a displacement
of the dream content; in the dream thoughts
only the other portion of the speech played
a part, because the dream work changed an
imaginary situation into utter irrecongnisa-
bility and complete inoffensiveness (while in
a certain sense I behave in an unseemly way
to the lady). The situation resulting in this
phantasy is, however, nothing but a new
edition of one that actually took place.

2. A dream apparently meaningless re-
lates to figures. “She wants to pay some-

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ON DREAMS

thing; her daughter takes three florins sixty-
five kreuzers out of her purse; but she says:
‘What are you doing? It only costs twenty-
one kreuzers.’ ”

The dreamer was a stranger who had
placed her child at school in Vienna, and
who was able to continue under my treat-
ment so long as her daughter remained at
Vienna. The day before the dream the
directress of the school had recommended
her to keep the child another year at school.
In this case she would have been able to
prolong her treatment by one year. The
figures in the dream become important if
it be remembered that time is money,
One year equals 365 days, or, expressed in
kreuzers, 365 kreuzers, which is three florins
sixty-five kreuzers. The twenty-one kreu-
zers correspond with the three weeks which
remained from the day of the dream to the
end of the school term, and thus to the end
of the treatment. It was obviously finan-
cial considerations which had moved the
lady to refuse the proposal of the directress.

76

and which were answerable for the triviality
of the amount in the dream.

3. A lady, young, but already ten years
married, heard that a friend of hers, Miss
Elise L—, of about the same age, had
become engaged. This gave rise to the
following dream:

She was sitting with her husband in the
theatre ; the one side of the stalls was quite
empty. Her husband tells her, Elise L—
and her fiancé had intended coming, but could
only get some cheap seats, three for one florin
fifty kreuzers, and these they would not take.
In her opinion, that would not have mattered
very much.

The origin of the figures from the matter
of the dream thoughts and the changes the
figures underwent are of interest. Whence
came the one florin fifty kreuzers ? From
a trifling occurrence of the previous day.
Her sister-in-law had received 150 florins
as a present from her husband, and had
quickly got rid of it by buying some orna-
ment. Note that 150 florins is one hundred

77

times one florin fifty kreuzers. For the
three concerned with the tickets, the only
link is that Elise L— is exactly three
months younger than the dreamer. The
scene in the dream is the repetition of a
little adventure for which she has often been
teased by her husband. She was once in
a great hurry to get tickets in time for a
piece, and when she came to the theatre
one side of the stalls was almost empty. It
was therefore quite unnecessary for her to
have been in such a hurry. Nor must we
overlook the absurdity of the dream that
two persons should take three tickets for
the theatre.

Now for the dream ideas. It was stupid
to have married so early; I need not have
been in so great a hurry. Elise L—’s ex-
ample shows me that I should have been
able to get a husband later; indeed, one a
hundred times better if I had but waited. I
could have bought three such men with the
money (dowry). …