INTRODUCTORY NOTE

In this volume I have attempted to expound the methods
and results of dream-interpretation; and in so doing I do not
think I have overstepped the boundary of neuropathological
science. For the dream proves on psychological investigation
to be the first of a series of abnormal psychic formations, a
series whose succeeding members—the hysterical phobias,
the obsessions, the delusions—must, for practical reasons,
claim the attention of the physician. The dream, as we shall
see, has no title to such practical importance, but for that very
reason its theoretical value as a typical formation is all the
greater, and the physician who cannot explain the origin of
dream-images will strive in vain to understand the phobias
and the obsessive and delusional ideas, or to influence them
by therapeutic methods.

But the very context to which our subject owes its importance
must be held responsible for the deficiencies of the following
chapters. The abundant lacunae in this exposition represent
so many points of contact at which the problem of dream-
formation is linked up with the more comprehensive problems
of psychopathology; problems which cannot be treated in
these pages, but which, if time and powers suffice and if further
material presents itself, may be elaborated elsewhere.

The peculiar nature of the material employed to exemplify
the interpretation of dreams has made the writing even of
this treatise a difficult task. Consideration of the methods of
dream-interpretation will show why the dreams recorded in
the literature on the subject, or those collected by persons
unknown to me, were useless for my purpose; I had only the
choice between my own dreams and those of the patients
whom I was treating by psychoanalytic methods. But this
latter material was inadmissible, since the dream-processes
were undesirably complicated by the intervention of neurotic
characters. And if I relate my own dreams I must inevitably
reveal to the gaze of strangers more of the intimacies of my
psychic life than is agreeable to me, and more than seems
fitting in a writer who is not a poet but a scientific investigator.
To do so is painful, but unavoidable; I have submitted to the

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necessity, for otherwise I could not have demonstrated my
psychological conclusions. Sometimes, of course, I could not
resist the temptation to mitigate my indiscretions by omissions
and substitutions; but wherever I have done so the value of
the example cited has been very definitely diminished. I can
only express the hope that my readers will understand my
difficult position, and will be indulgent; and further, that all
those persons who are in any way concerned in the dreams
recorded will not seek to forbid our dream-life at all events to
exercise freedom of thought!