IV
DISTORTION IN DREAMS

Ir 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 the writers on the subject. (Cf. Radestock, pp. 137-
138; Volkelt, pp. 110-111; Purkinje, p. 456; Tissié, p. 70;
M. Simon, p. 42, on the hunger-dreams of the imprisoned
Baron Trenck; and the passage in Griesinger, p. 111.)* 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 pessimistic philosopher, Eduard von
Hartmann, is perhaps most completely opposed to the theory
of wish-fulfilment. In his Philosophy of the Unconscious, 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 reconcile 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
painful emotions of life, there are also anxiety-dreams, in
which this most terrible of all the painful emotions torments

* Already 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).

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 141

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 generaliza-
tion of the 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 interpret 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 confronted not only with the
problem: How can painful and terrifying dreams be the ful-
filments 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,

* It 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
nonsense 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 communicate new know-
ledge. Like some letter in cipher, the dream-inscription when scrutinized closely loses its
first look of balderdash and takes on the aspect of a serious, intelligible message. Or, to vary
the figure slightl», we may say that, like some palimpsest, the dream discloses beneath its
worthless surface-characters traces of an old and precious communication” (р. 364).

142 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 interpre-
tation, 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 pheno-
menon 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 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 explanation.
I shall demonstrate this by means of a second dream of my
own, which again involves numerous indiscretions, but which
compensates for this personal sacrifice by affording a thorough
elucidation of the problem.

Preliminary Statement.—In the spring of 1897 I learnt that
two professors of our university had proposed me for the title
of Professor Extraordinarius (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 dis-
regarded 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 undoubtedly hung too high
for me.

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 143

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 religious 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 resignation. 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.

I. My friend R. is my uncle—I have a great affection for him.
II. 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 follow-
ing manner:

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-interpretation one of your
patients could find nothing better to say than ‘That is non-
sense,” you would reprove him, and you would suspect that

144 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 proceeded
with the interpretation.

“R. is my uncle.” What can that mean? I had only one
uncle, my uncle Joseph." 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 transactions 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 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
relationship. 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

+ It 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.”

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 145

thinking of this offence? That would make the comparison
ridiculous. Here I recollect another conversation, which I
had some days ago with another colleague, № ; as a matter of
fact, on the same subject. I met N. in the street; he, too, has
been nominated for a professorship, and having heard that I
had been similarly honoured he congratulated 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 earnest: “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 representation. 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 unaffected.
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 any-
K

146 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

one who suggested that I really considered R. a simpleton,
or that I did not believe 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 preparation of propyl
administered by Otto. Here, as before, what the dream expresses
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 establishing 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 department,
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 elucidation.

I remember now that the dream contained yet another
portion which has hitherto been ignored by the interpretation.
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 affection. 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 exag-
gerated, as does my judgement of his intellectual qualities,
which I expressed by merging his personality in that of my
uncle; but exaggerated in the opposite direction. Now, how-
ever, a new state of affairs dawns upon me. The affection in
the dream does not belong to the latent content, to the thoughts
behind the dream; it stands in opposition to this content; it
is calculated to conceal the knowledge conveyed by the inter-
pretation. Probably this is precisely its function. I remember
with what reluctance I undertook the interpretation, how long
I tried to postpone it, and how I declared the dream to be
sheer nonsense. I know from my psychoanalytic practice how
such a condemnation is to be interpreted. It has no informative
value, but merely expresses 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

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 147

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 interpret it because there is
something in the interpretation to which I object. After the
interpretation of the dream is completed, 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 disguised at this point, and actually misrepresents things by
producing their opposites, then the manifest affection in the
dream serves the purpose of the misrepresentation; in other
words, the distortion is here shown to be intentional—it is a
means of disguise. My dream-thoughts of R. are derogatory,
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. Wher-
ever a wish-fulfilment is unrecognizable 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 con-
sideration 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 mis-
representation: 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 them
without reserve, the Government will suppress them—retro-

148 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

spectively in the case of a verbal expression of opinion, pre-
ventively 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 appar-
ently innocent disguise. He may, for instance, tell of a
contretemps 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 ingenious the means
employed to put the reader on the track of the actual meaning.

* In 1915 Frau Dr. 11. von Hug-Hellmuth recorded a dream (Internat. Zeitschr.
für årztl. Psychoanalyse, 111) which will serve, perhaps, better than any other to
Justify my nomenclature. The misrepresentation in this dream resorts to the
means employed by the postal censors during the war in order to delete passages
which they considered obnoxious. The postal censors made these passages un-
readable by blocking them out, whereas the dream-censor replaces them by
unintelligible murmurs.

The reader will more readily understand the dream if I explain beforehand
that the dreamer was a greatly respected and highly cultured lady of fifty, the
widow of an officer of high rank, who had died some twelve years previously,
and the mother of grown-up sons, oric of whom was at the Front at the time.

And now to the dream of “Love-services”: She goes to the garrison hospital
No. 1, and tells the sentry at the door that she must speak to the surgeon in charge
. . . (she mentions a name unfamiliar to her) as she wishes to offer her services in
the hospital. At the same time she accentuates the word “services,” so that the
non-commissioned officer realizes at once that she is speaking of “love-services.”
As she is an elderly lady, he lets her pass after some delay. Instead of going to the
surgeon-major, however, she enters a large, dimly lighted room, in which a
number of officers and army surgeons are standing or sitting at a long table.
She makes her offer to a staff-surgeon, who at once understands what she pro-
poses. The wording of her speech in the dream is as follows: “I and many other
women and young girls of Vienna are ready to ‥ . (a murmur) . . . the soldiers,
officers and privates without distinction. +” That her proposal is correctly
understood by all those present is shown by the half-embarrassed, half-sly ex-
pressions of the officers. The lady continues: “I know that our decision sounds
strange, but we are in deadly earnest. The soldier at the Front is not asked whether
or not he wishes to die.” For a minute there is a painful silence. The staff-surgeon
puts his arm round her, and says: “Gracious lady, imagine if it actually came
to . . ." (a murmur). She withdraws from his arm, thinking: “One is just like
another,” and replies: “My God, I'm an old woman, and shall perhaps never
be in that position. Besides, one condition must be made: there is the consideration
of age; an old woman must not (murmurs) a mere lad ; that would be terrible.”—
The staff-surgeon: “I understand perfectly.” Some officers, one of whom had
courted her in her youth, laugh aloud, and the lady asks to be taken to the surgeon-

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 149

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 (ten-
dencies 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 exercise its censorship? If we
remember that the latent dream-thoughts are not conscious
before analysis, but that the manifest dream-content emerging
from them is consciously remembered, it is not a far-fetched
assumption that admittance to the consciousness is the pre-
rogative 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 consciousness. 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 inde-
pendent 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 bear in mind the notion of the two psychic instances and
their relation to the consciousness, I find in the sphere of
politics a perfectly appropriate 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

major, who is known to her, so that everything may be settled. To her great
surprise, it occurs to her that she does not know his name. Nevertheless, the
staff-surgeon very politely and respectfully shows her the way, up a very narrow
spiral staircase, which leads directly to the second floor. As she climbs the stairs
she hears an officer say: “This is a tremendous decision, whether a woman is
young or old; all honour to her.” With the feeling that she is simply doing her
duty, she climbs up an endless staircase.

This dream repeated itself twice within a few weeks, with—as the lady remarks
—quite unimportant and nonsensical variations.

150 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 dis-
parage him as a simpleton. *

We may now perhaps begin to suspect that dream-inter-
pretation 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 problem
as soon as we have elucidated the problem of dream-dis-
tortion. The question arose, how dreams with a disagreeable
content can be analysed as wish-fulfilments. We see now that
this is possible where a dream-distortion has occurred, when
the disagreeable content serves only to disguise the thing
wished for. With regard to our assumptions respecting the
two psychic instances, we can now also say that disagreeable
dreams contain, 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

1 Such 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 reconciliation 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 encouragement 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 tenderness (“Typischcs Beispiel eines verkappten Oedi-
pustråumes,” Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, Bd. 1, Heft 1-11, 1910). Another class
of hypocritical dreams will be recorded in another place (See Chap. VI, The
Work of the Dream).

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 151

defensive, not in a constructive manner. Were we to limit
ourselves to a consideration of what the second instance con-
tributes to the dream we should never understand the dream,
and all the problems which the writers 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 un-
avoidable.

When I treat a psycho-neurotic patient analytically, his
dreams regularly, as I have said, become a theme of our
conversations. I must therefore give him all the psychological
explanations with whose aid I myself have succeeded in
understanding his symptoms. And here I encounter unsparing
criticism, which is perhaps no less shrewd than that which I
have to expect from my colleagues. With perfect uniformity
my patients contradict the doctrine that dreams are the fulfil-
ments of wishes. Here are several examples of the sort of dream-
material which is adduced in refutation of my theory.

“You are always saying that a dream is a wish fulfilled,”
begins an intelligent 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: 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 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?”

* Later on we shall become acquainted with cases in which, on the contrary,
the dream expresses a wish of this second instance.

152 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 salesman, 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 physical 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’höte, had made the acquaintance of an artist, who insisted
upon painting 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.:—She is very much in love with her
husband, and teases him a good deal. She has asked him not
to give her any caviare. 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 caviare from her husband
at once if she asked for it. But she has, on the contrary, begged
him not to give her any caviare, 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 caviare. I sce 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 corre-

* To sit for the painter.
Goethe : “And if he has no backside,
How can the nobleman sit?”

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 153

sponds 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.”

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 solu-
tion. 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 favourite 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
caviare.

This dream admits of yet another and more exact interpre-
tation—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 1
all other psychopathological formations. We have heard that at
the time of her dream of a denied wish the patient is impelled
to deny herself a real wish (the wish to eat caviare sandwiches).
Her friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get fatter,
and it would not surprise us if our patient had dreamt that this
wish of her friend’s—the wish to increase in weight—is not to
be fulfilled. Instead of this, however, she dreams that one of
her own wishes is not fulfilled. The dream becomes capable of
a new interpretation if in the dream she does not mean herself,

154 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 herselfin real life an unfulfilled
wish. But what is the meaning of this hysterical identification?
To elucidate this a more exhaustive exposition is necessary.
Identification is a highly important motive 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 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
unconscious end-process, as an example will show. The
physician who has, in the same ward with other patients, a
female patient who suffers 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 him-
self: 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 physician knows about any one of them,
and they are concerned about one another 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 although it does not emerge into consciousness they form
the following conclusion: “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

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 155

psychic region, and consequently ends in the realization of
the dreaded symptoms. Thus identification is not mere imi-
tation, but an assimilation based upon the same etiological
claim; it expresses a “just like,” and refers 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 symptoms 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 herself with her by fabricating a symp-
tom (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. 2

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-fulfilment of one wish signified
the fulfilment of another. I had one day explained 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
3 I 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 psychoncuroses, they have served the intention with which I have
included them.

156 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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. According 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, referred
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, corre-
sponded 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 lecture of mine, delivered to a
small audience, on the novel idea that dreams are wish-fulfil-
ments. 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 7 saw

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 157

Charles lying dead 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 frustrated
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 affec-
tions 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
transfer her love to the other suitors who successively presented
themselves. Whenever the man she loved, who was a member
of the literary profession, announced a lecture anywhere,

she was certain to be found among the audience; and she
seized every other opportunity of seeing him unobserved. 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

158 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 inwardly.
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 which wishes of the sort are commonly suppressed
—a situation so sorrowful 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 another patient, who in earlier life had been dis-
tinguished 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 fifteen-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.! For in the course of the
analysis 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 same 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
Biichse, and had then been haunted by the recollection that
Biichse is used in vulgar parlance to denote the female genitals.

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

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 159

It was therefore possible, treating her knowledge of topographi-
cal 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 actually 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, there-
fore, 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 con-
sidered 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 interpreted 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 intelli
gent jurist of my acquaintance. "7 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?” —"1 would rather not tell you—it is a delicate matter.”

= 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 subsequently fitted in, invariably furnish the key to the interpretation.
Cf. Chapter VII, on forgetting in dreams.

160 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

— 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 practise 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 remember, a few
days ago we were talking about the troubles of matrimony,
and about the inconsistency of permitting coitus so long as
no impregnation 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 connec-
tion we recalled the mediaeval 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 infanticide and birth-control on the
same plane.”—“Strangely enough, I happened, 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 perhaps more than one explanation. From my essay on
the etiology of anxiety neurosis, you will see that I note
coilus interruptus as one of the factors responsible for the
development of neurotic fear. It would be consistent with
this if, after repeated coitus of this kind, you were left in an
uncomfortable frame of mind, which now becomes an element

162 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 a wish-fulfilment.:
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 occurring in the course of treatment once more demon-
strates 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. Stårcke) and interpreted by him: “7 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 Stárke, proves to be “the representative of wish-
fulfilments charged with intense emotion."

1 Similar “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.”
2 Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, Jahrg. II, 1911-12.

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 163

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 component, which has arisen through
the conversion of the aggressive, sadistic component into its
opposite. Such people are called “ideal” masochists 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 disa-
greeable dreams, yet these are for them nothing more than
wish-fulfilments, which satisfy their masochistic inclinations.
Here is such a dream: A young man, who in earlier youth
greatly tormented his elder brother, toward whom he was
homosexually inclined, but who has since undergone a complete
change of character, has the following dream, which consists
of three parts: (1) He is “leased” by his brother. (2) Two adults
are caressing each other with homosexual intentions. (2) His brother
has sold the business the management of which the young man had
reserved for his own future. From this last dream he awakens with
the most unpleasant feelings; 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 suffered
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.* 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

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

164 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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."

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

1 A great contemporary poet, who, I am told, will hear nothing of psycho-
analysis and dream-interpretation, has nevertheless derived from his own ex-
perience an almost identical formula for the nature of the dream: “Unauthorized
emergence of suppressed yearnings under false features and names” (C. Spitteler,
Meine frühesten Erlebnisse, in Suddeutsche Monatshefte, October, 1913).

I will here anticipate by citing the amplification and modification of this
fundamental 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).

Nowhere have I said that I have accepted this formula of Rank’s. The shorter
version contained in the text seems to me sufficient. But the fact that I merely
mentioned 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 conscientiousness 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 opposition to “destructive” ones) has hardly been considered by our

opponents.

DISTORTION IN DREAMS 165

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 correspond-
ing 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," written
in 1895, I maintain that neurotic 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 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.

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