6

II.

ONE day I discovered to my amazement
that the popular view grounded in super-
stition, and not the medical one, comes
nearer to the truth about dreams. I
arrived at new conclusions about dreams
by the use of a new method of psychological
investigation, one which had rendered me
good service in the investigation of phobias,
obsessions, illusions, and the like, and
which, under the name “psycho-analysis,”
had found acceptance by a whole school of
investigators. The manifold analogies of
dream life with the most diverse conditions
of psychical disease in the waking state have
been rightly insisted upon by a number
of medical observers. It seemed, there-
fore, a priori, hopeful to apply to the
interpretation of dreams methods of investi-
gation which had been tested in psycho-

7

ON DREAMS

pathological processes. Obsessions and
those peculiar sensations of haunting dread
remain as strange to normal consciousness
as do dreams to our waking consciousness;
their origin is as unknown to consciousness
as is that of dreams. It was practical ends
that impelled us, in these diseases, to
fathom their origin and formation. Ex-
perience had shown us that a cure and a
consequent mastery of the obsessing ideas
did result when once those thoughts, the
connecting links between the morbid ideas
and the rest of the psychical content, were
revealed which were heretofore veiled from
consciousness. The procedure I employed
for the interpretation of dreams thus arose
from psychotherapy.

This procedure is readily described, al-
though its practice demands instruction
and experience. Suppose the patient is
suffering from intense morbid dread. He
is requested to direct his attention to the
idea in question, without, however, as he
has so frequently done, meditating upon it.

8

Every impression about it, without any
exception, which occurs to him should be
imparted to the doctor. The statement
which will be perhaps then made, that he
cannot concentrate his attention upon any
thing at all, is to be countered by assuring
him most positively that such a blank state
of mind is utterly impossible. As a matter
of fact, a great number of impressions will
soon occur, with which others will associate
themselves. These will be invariably ac-
companied by the expression of the obser-
ver’s opinion that they have no meaning
or are unimportant. It will be at once
noticed that it is this self-criticism which
prevented the patient from imparting the
ideas, which had indeed already excluded
them from consciousness. If the patient
can be induced to abandon this self-
criticism and to pursue the trains of thought
which are yielded by concentrating the
attention, most significant matter will be
obtained, matter which will be presently
seen to be clearly linked to the morbid idea

9

ON DREAMS

in question. Its connection with other
ideas will be manifest, and later on will per-
mit the replacement of the morbid idea by
a fresh one, which is perfectly adapted to
psychical continuity.

This is not the place to examine thor-
oughly the hypothesis upon which this
experiment rests, or the deductions which
follow from its invariable success. It must
suffice to state that we obtain matter
enough for the resolution of every morbid
idea if we especially direct our attention to
the unbidden associations which disturb our
thoughts—those which are otherwise put
aside by the critic as worthless refuse. If
the procedure is exercised on oneself, the
best plan of helping the experiment is to
write down at once all one’s first indistinct
fancies.

I will now point out where this method
leads when I apply it to the examination of
dreams. Any dream could be made use
of in this way. From certain motives I,
however, choose a dream of my own, which

10

ON DREAMS

appears confused and meaningless to my
memory, and one which has the advantage
of brevity. Probably my dream of last
night satisfies the requirements. Its con-
tent, fixed immediately after awakening,
runs as follows:

“ Company ; at table or table d’hôte. …
Spinach is served. Mrs. E. L., sitting next
to me, gives me her undivided attention, and
places her hand familiarly upon my knee.
In defence I remove her hand. Then she
says : ‘ But you have always had such beauti-
ful eyes.’ … I then distinctly see something
like two eyes as a sketch or as the contour of
a spectacle lens. … ”

This is the whole dream, or, at all events,
all that I can remember. It appears to
me not only obscure and meaningless, but
more especially odd. Mrs. E. L. is a person
with whom I am scarcely on visiting terms,
nor to my knowledge have I ever desired
any more cordial relationship. I have not
seen her for a long time, and do not think
there was any mention of her recently. No

II

emotion whatever accompanied the dream
process.

Reflecting upon this dream does not make
it a bit clearer to my mind. I will now,
however, present the ideas, without pre-
meditation and without criticism, which
introspection yielded. I soon notice that
it is an advantage to break up the dream
into its elements, and to search out the
ideas which link themselves to each frag-
ment.

Company; at table or table d’hôte. The
recollection of the slight event with which
the evening of yesterday ended is at once
called up. I left a small party in the
company of a friend, who offered to drive
me home in his cab. “I prefer a taxi,” he
said; “that gives one such a pleasant
occupation; there is always something to
look at.” When we were in the cab, and the
cab-
driver turned the disc so that the first
sixty hellers were visible, I continued the
jest. “We have hardly got in and we
already owe sixty hellers. The taxi always

12

ON DREAMS

reminds me of the table d’hôte. It makes
me avaricious and selfish by continuously
reminding me of my debt. It seems to me
to mount up too quickly, and I am always
afraid that I shall be at a disadvantage,
just as I cannot resist at table d’hôte the
comical fear that I am getting too little,
that I must look after myself.” In far-
fetched connection with this I quote:

“To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
To guilt ye let us heedless go.”

Another idea about the table d’hôte. A
few weeks ago I was very cross with my
dear wife at the dinner-table at a Tyrolese
health resort, because she was not suf-
ficiently reserved with some neighbours
with whom I wished to have absolutely
nothing to do. I begged her to occupy
herself rather with me than with the
strangers. That is just as if I had been at
a disadvantage at the table d’hôte. The
contrast between the behaviour of my wife
at that table and that of Mrs. E. L. in

13

ON DREAMS

the dream now strikes me: “Addresses
herself entirely to me.”

Further, I now notice that the dream is
the reproduction of a little scene which
transpired between my wife and myself
when I was secretly courting her. The
caressing under cover of the tablecloth was
an answer to a wooer’s passionate letter.
In the dream, however, my wife is replaced
by the unfamiliar E. L.

Mrs. E. L. is the daughter of a man to
whom I owed money ! I cannot help notic-
ing that here there is revealed an unsus-
pected connection between the dream con-
tent and my thoughts. If the chain of
associations be followed up which proceeds
from one element of the dream one is soon
led back to another of its elements. The
thoughts evoked by the dream stir up
associations which were not noticeable in
the dream itself.

Is it not customary, when someone ex-
pects others to look after his interests with-
out any advantage to themselves, to ask

14

the innocent question satirically: “Do you
think this will be done for the sake of your
beautiful eyes ?” Hence Mrs. E. L.’s speech
in the dream. “You have always had
such beautiful eyes,” means nothing but
“people always do everything to you for
love of you; you have had everything for
nothing.” The contrary is, of course, the
truth; I have always paid dearly for what-
ever kindness others have shown me. Still,
the fact that I had a ride for nothing yester-
day when my friend drove me home in his
cab must have made an impression upon me.

In any case, the friend whose guests we
were yesterday has often made me his
debtor.

Recently I allowed an opportunity
of requiting him to go by. He has had only
one present from me, an antique shawl,
upon which eyes are painted all round, a
so-called Occhiale, as a charm against the
Malocchio. Moreover, he is an eye specialist.
That same evening I had asked him after a
patient whom I had sent to him for glasses.

As I remarked, nearly all parts of the

15

ON DREAMS

dream have been brought into this new
connection. I still might ask why in the
dream it was spinach that was served up.
Because spinach called up a little scene
which recently occurred at our table. A
child, whose beautiful eyes are really deserv-
ing of praise, refused to eat spinach. As a
child I was just the same; for a long time
I loathed spinach, until in later life my
tastes altered, and it became one of my
favourite dishes. The mention of this dish
brings my own childhood and that of my
child’s near together. “You should be
glad that you have some spinach,” his
mother had said to the little gourmet.
“Some children would be very glad to get
spinach.” Thus I am reminded of the
parents’ duties towards their children.
Goethe’s words—

“To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
To guilt ye let us heedless go”—

take on another meaning in this connection.
Here I will stop in order that I may

16

recapitulate the results of the analysis of
the dream. By following the associations
which were linked to the single elements of
the dream torn from their context, I have
been led to a series of thoughts and reminis-
cences where I am bound to recognise
interesting expressions of my psychical life.
The matter yielded by an analysis of the
dream stands in intimate relationship with
the dream content, but this relationship is
so special that I should never have been
able to have inferred the new discoveries
directly from the dream itself. The dream
was passionless, disconnected, and un-
intelligible. During the time that I am
unfolding the thoughts at the back of the
dream I feel intense and well-grounded
emotions. The thoughts themselves fit
beautifully together into chains logically
bound together with certain central ideas
which ever repeat themselves. Such ideas
not represented in the dream itself are in
this instance the antitheses selfish, unselfish,
to be indebted, to work for nothing. I could

17

draw closer the threads of the web which
analysis has disclosed, and would then be
able to show how they all run together into
a single knot; I am debarred from making
this work public by considerations of a
private, not of a scientific, nature. After
having cleared up many things which I do
not willingly acknowledge as mine, I should
have much to reveal which had better
remain my secret. Why, then, do not I
choose another dream whose analysis would
be more suitable for publication, so that I
could awaken a fairer conviction of the
sense and cohesion of the results disclosed
by analysis? The answer is, because every
dream which I investigate leads to the
same difficulties and places me under the
same need of discretion; nor should I forgo
this difficulty any the more were I to analyse
the dream of someone else. That could
only be done when opportunity allowed all
concealment to be dropped without injury
to those who trusted me.

The conclusion which is now forced upon

2

18

me is that the dream is a sort of substitution
for those emotional and intellectual trains
of thought which I attained after complete
analysis. I do not yet know the process by
which the dream arose from those thoughts,
but I perceive that it is wrong to regard the
dream as psychically unimportant, a purely
physical process which has arisen from the
activity of isolated cortical elements awak-
ened out of sleep.

I must further remark that the dream is
far shorter than the thoughts which I hold it
replaces ; whilst analysis discovered that the
dream was provoked by an unimportant
occurrence the evening before the dream.

Naturally, I would not draw such far-
reaching conclusions if only one analysis
were known to me. Experience has shown
me that when the associations of any dream
are honestly followed such a chain of
thought is revealed, the constituent parts of
the dream reappear correctly and sensibly
linked together; the slight suspicion that
this concatenation was merely an accident

19

ON DREAMS

of a single first observation must, therefore,
be absolutely relinquished. I regard it,
therefore, as my right to establish this new
view by a proper nomenclature. I con-
trast the dream which my memory evokes
with the dream and other added matter
revealed by analysis: the former I call the
dream’s manifest content; the latter, with-
out at first further subdivision, its latent
content. I arrive at two new problems
hitherto unformulated: (1) What is the
psychical process which has transfor-
med the latent content of the dream into its mani-
fest content? (2) What is the motive or the
motives which have made such transfor-
mation exigent. The process by which the
change from latent to manifest content is
executed I name the dream-work. In con-
trast with this this is the work of analysis, which
produces the reverse transformation. The
other problems of the dream—the inquiry
as to its stimuli, as to the source of its
materials, as to its possible purpose, the
function of dreaming, the forgetting of

20

ON DREAMS

dreams—these I will discuss in connection
with the latent dream-content.

I shall take every care to avoid a con-
fusion between the manifest and the latent
content, for I ascribe all the contradictory
as well as the incorrect accounts of dream-
life to the ignorance of this latent content,
now first laid bare through analysis.