TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION

THE first edition of this book appeared twenty years ago and
marked a momentous event in the history of the psycho-
analytic movement in English-speaking countries. It was the
third and most important of Professor Freud’s works made
accessible to English readers through my efforts. The other two
translations consisted of some of Professor Freud’s papers on
the psychoneuroses and his great contributions to the problem
of sex.¹

The Interpretation of Dreams is Professor Freud’s opus magnum;
it is the keystone of the science of psychoanalysis and the most
difficult part thereof. He who is well versed in the technique of
interpreting dreams possesses the key to neurotic and psychotic
symptoms, to myths, fairy tales, folklore, and religious rites.
The Interpretation of Dreams is not a book which can be read
pour s’amuser; the material it presents can only be grasped after
long and patient application. For the depths and complexities
of our psychic apparatus have never been so profoundly
penetrated and as thoroughly explored as in this work.

When the first German edition of the present volume
appeared in 1900, it aroused the scientific world from its
lethargic indifference to the problem of dreams. Professor
Freud’s claims that the dream has a definite meaning, that it is
logical, and that it always follows positive tendencies, were as
amazing as provoking. For centuries only few investigators
had dignified the problem of dreams with their reflections;
the rank and file had either ignored it altogether or made
merry over it.

But the ideas promulgated in the present volume have now
stood the test of thirty-two years. Following its appearance in
English, it was also translated into French, Swedish, and
Spanish; and it has not only aroused discussions on the problem
of dreams, as such, but indirectly it has also stimulated great
interest in the study of normal and abnormal psychic life. No
work on psychology or psychiatry worthy of its name can now

¹Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses, 1909, and Three Contributions
to the Theory of Sex, 1912, Monograph Series, Nervous and Mental Disease Pub-
lishing Company, New York.

14

afford to ignore Freud’s theories of dream analysis. The
Interpretation of Dreams, has exerted the greatest influence on
the mental sciences; it has practically rewritten them.

The present volume is a translation of the last, or eighth
German edition, and contains Professor Freud’s most recent
formulations of the psychic apparatus in so far as they are
related to the psychology of dreams. It is an entirely new
translation, thoroughly revised to conform to the new material
and the new psychoanalytic terminology which has come into
existence since the appearance of the first English edition. That
there should have been a demand for a new translation after
eleven printings of the first and second editions is a most
gratifying sign of the progress of psychoanalysis in the English-
speaking world.

A. A. BRILL