113

IV

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

If I make the assertion that wish fulfilment is the meaning of
every dream, that, accordingly, there can be no dreams except
wish dreams, I am sure at the outset to meet with the most
emphatic contradiction. Objections will be made-
to this
effect : “The fact that there are dreams which must be under-
stood as fulfilments of wishes is not new, but, on the contrary,
has long since been recognised by the authors. Cf. Radestock⁵⁴
(pp. 137-
138), Volkelt⁷² (pp. 110-111), Tissié⁶³ (p. 70), M.
Simon⁶³ (p. 42) on the hunger dreams of the imprisoned Baron
Trenck), and the passage in Griesinger⁸¹ (p. 11). The assump-
tion that there can be nothing but dreams of wish fulfilment,
however, is another of those unjustified generalisations by
which you have been pleased to distinguish yourself of late.
Indeed dreams which exhibit the most painful content, but
not a trace of wish fulfilment, occur plentifully enough. The
pessimistic philosopher, Edward von Hartman, perhaps
stands furthest from the theory of wish fulfilment. He ex-
presses himself in his Philosophy of the Unconscious, Part II.
(stereotyped edition, p. 34), to the following effect :-

“ As regards the dream, all the troubles of waking life are
transferred by it to the sleeping state ; only the one thing,
which can in somemeasure reconcile a cultured person to
life-scientific and artistic enjoyment is not transferred. . . .”

But even less discontented observers have laid emphasis on
the fact that in dreams pain and disgust are more frequent
than pleasure ; so Scholz⁵⁹ (p. 39), Volkelt⁷² (p. 80), and
others. Indeed two ladies, Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam,³³
have found from the elaboration of their dreams a mathe-
matical expression for the preponderance of displeasure in
dreams. They designate 58 per cent. of the dreams as dis-
agreeable, and only 28.6 per cent. as positively pleasant. Besides
those dreams which continue the painful sensations of life

114

during sleep, there are also dreams of fear, in which this most
terrible of all disagreeable sensations tortures us until we
awake, and it is with just these dreams of fear that children
are so often persecuted (Cf. Debacker¹⁷ concerning the Pavor
Nocturnus), though it is in the case of children that you have
found dreams of wishing undisguised.”

Indeed it is the anxiety dreams which seem to prevent a
generalisation of the thesis that the dream is a wish-
fulfilment,
which we have established by means of the examples in the
last section ; they seem even to brand this thesis as an ab-
surdity.

It is not difficult, however, to escape these apparently
conclusive objections. Please observe that our doctrine does
not rest upon an acceptance of the manifest dream content,
but has reference to the thought content which is found to lie
behind the dream by the process of interpretation. Let us
contrast the manifest and the latent dream content. It is true
that there are dreams whose content is of the most painful
nature. But has anyone ever tried to interpret these dreams,
to disclose their latent thought content ? If not, the two
objections are no longer valid against us ; there always remains
the possibility that even painful and fearful dreams may be
discovered to be wish fulfilments upon interpretation.^*

In scientific work it is often advantageous, when the solu-
tion of one problem presents difficulties, to take up a second
problem, just as it is easier to crack two nuts together instead
of separately. Accordingly we are confronted not merely
with the problem : How can painful and fearful dreams be
the fulfilments of wishes ? but we may also, from our discussion
so far, raise the question : Why do not the dreams which
show an indifferent content, but turn out to be wish-fulfilments,
show this meaning undisguised ? Take the fully reported
dream of Irma’s injection ; it is in no way painful in its nature,
and can be recognised, upon interpretation, as a striking wish-
fulfilment. Why, in the first place, is an interpretation
necessary ? Why does not the dream say directly what it
means ? As a matter of fact, even the dream of Irma’s in-

^*It is quite incredible with what stubbornness readers and critics
exclude this consideration, and leave unheeded the fundamental differentia-
tion between the manifest and the latent dream content.

115

jection does not at first impress us as representing a wish of
the dreamer as fulfilled. The reader will not have received
this impression, and even I myself did not know it until I had
undertaken the analysis. If we call this peculiarity of the
dream of needing an explanation the fact of the distortion of
dreams, then a second question arises: What is the origin
of this disfigurement of dreams?

If one’s first impressions on this subject were consulted,
one might happen upon several possible solutions; for example,
that there is an inability during sleep to find an adequate
expression for the dream thoughts. The analysis of certain
dreams, however, compels us to give the disfigurement of
dreams another explanation. I shall show this by employing
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
appointment as Professor extraord. (assistant professor).
This news reached me unexpectedly and pleased me con-
siderably as an expression of appreciation on the part of two
eminent men which could not be explained by personal in-
terest. But, I immediately thought, I must not permit myself
to attach any expectation to this event. The university
government had during the last few years left proposals of
this kind unconsidered, and several colleagues, who were
ahead of me in years, and who were at least my equals in merit,
had been waiting in vain during this time for their appoint-
ment. I had no reason to suppose I should fare better. I
resolved then to comfort myself. I am not, so far as I know,
ambitious, and I engage in medical practice with satisfying
results even without the recommendation of a title. Moreover,
it was not a question whether I considered the grapes sweet or
sour, for they undoubtedly hung much too high for me.

One evening I was visited by a friend of mine, one of those
colleagues whose fate I had taken as a warning for myself.
As he had long been a candidate for promotion to the position
of professor, which in our society raises the physician to a
demigod among his patients, and as he was less resigned than
I, he was in the habit of making representations from time to

116

THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

time, at the offices of the university government, for the pur
pose of advancing his interests. He came to me from a visit
of that kind. He said that this time he had driven the exalted
gentleman into a corner, and had asked him directly whether
considerations of creed were not really responsible for the
deferment of his appointment. The answer had been that
to be sure—in the present state of public opinion—His Ex-
cellency was not in a position, &c. “Now I at least know
what I am at,” said my friend in closing his narrative, which
told me nothing new, but which was calculated to confirm me
in my resignation. For the same considerations of creed
applied to my own case.

On the morning after this visit, I had the following dream,
which was notable on account of its form. It consisted of
two thoughts and two images, so that a thought and an image
alternated. But I here record only the first half of the dream,
because the other half has nothing to do with the purpose
which the citation of the dream should serve.
I. Friend R. is my uncle—I feel 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 emphasised with peculiar distinctness.

Then follow the other two portions, again a thought and
an image, which I omit.

The interpretation of this dream was accomplished in the
following manner :

As the dream occurred to me in the course of the forenoon,
I laughed outright and said : “The dream is nonsense.”
But I could not get it out of my mind, and the whole day it
pursued me, until, at last, in the evening I reproached myself
with the words : “If in the course of dream interpretation
one of your patients had nothing better to say than ‘That is
nonsense,’ you would reprove him, and would suspect that
behind the dream there was hidden some disagreeable affair,
the exposure of which he wanted to spare himself. Apply
the same thing in your own case ; your opinion that the
dream is nonsense probably signifies merely an inner resistance
to its interpretation. Do not let yourself be deterred.” I
then proceeded to the interpretation.

“R. is my uncle.” What does that mean. I have had

117

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

only one uncle, my uncle Joseph.^* His story, to be sure, was
a sad one. He had yielded to the temptation, more than
thirty years before, of engaging in dealings which the law
punishes severely, and which on that occasion also it had
visited with punishment. My father, who thereupon became
grey from grief in a few days, always used to say that Uncle
Joseph was never a wicked man, but that he was indeed a
simpleton; so he expressed himself. If, then, friend R. is
my uncle Joseph, that is equivalent to saying: “R. is a
simpleton.” Hardly credible and very unpleasant! But there
is that face which I see in the dream, with its long features
and its yellow beard. My uncle actually had such a face—
long and surrounded by a handsome blond beard. My friend
R. was quite dark, but when dark-haired persons begin to
grow grey, they pay for the glory of their youthful years.
Their black beard undergoes an unpleasant change of color,
each hair separately; first it becomes reddish brown, then
yellowish brown, and then at last definitely grey. The beard
of my friend R. is now in this stage, as is my own moreover, a
fact which I notice with regret. The face which I see in the
dream is at once that of my friend R. and that of my uncle.
It is like a composite photograph of Galton, who, in order
to emphasise family resemblances, had several faces photo-
graphed on the same plate. No doubt is thus possible, I
am really of the opinion that my friend R. is a simpleton—
like my uncle Joseph.

I have still no idea for what purpose I have constructed
this relationship, to which I must unconditionally object. But it
is not a very far-reaching one, for my uncle was a criminal,
my friend R. is innocent—perhaps with the exception of
having been punished for knocking down an apprentice with
his bicycle. Could I mean this offence? That would be
making ridiculous comparisons. Here I recollect another
conversation which I had with another colleague, N., and
indeed upon the same subject. I met N. on the street. He
likewise has been nominated for a professorship, and having

^* It is remarkable how my memory narrows here for the purposes of
analysis while I am awake. I have known five of my uncles, and have
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.”

118

heard of my being honoured, congratulated me upon it. I
declined emphatically, saying, “You are the last man to make
a joke like this, because you have experienced what the nomi-
nation is worth in your own case.” Thereupon he said, though
probably not in earnest, “You cannot be sure about that.
Against me there is a very particular objection. Don’t you
know that a woman once entered a legal complaint against
me? I need not assure you that an inquiry was made; it
was a mean attempt at blackmail, and it was all I could do
to save the plaintiff herself from punishment. But perhaps
the affair will be pressed against me at the office in order that
I may not be appointed. You, however, are above reproach.”
Here I have come upon a criminal, and at the same time upon
the interpretation and trend of the dream. My uncle Joseph
represents for me both colleagues who have not been appointed
to the professorship, the one as a simpleton, the other as a
criminal. I also know now for what purpose I need this re-
presentation. If considerations of creed are a determining
factor in the postponement of the appointment of my friends,
then my own appointment is also put in question : but if I
can refer the rejection of the two friends to other causes, which
do not apply to my case, my hope remains undisturbed. This
is the procedure of my dream; it makes the one, R., a
simpleton, the other, N., a criminal; since, however, I am
neither the one nor the other, our community of interest is
destroyed, I have a right to enjoy the expectation of being
appointed a professor, and have escaped the painful applica-
tion to my own case of the information which the high official
has given to R.

I must occupy myself still further with the interpretation
of this dream. For my feelings it is not yet sufficiently cleared
up. I am still disquieted by the ease with which I degrade
two respected colleagues for the purpose of clearing the way
to the professorship for myself. My dissatisfaction with
my procedure has indeed diminished since I have learnt to
evaluate statements made in dreams. I would argue against
anyone who urged that I really consider R. a simpleton, and
that I do not credit N.’s account of the blackmail affair. I
do not believe either that Irma has been made seriously ill by
an injection given her by Otto with a preparation of propyl.

119

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

Here, as before, it is only the wish that the case may be as the
dream expresses it. The statement in which my wish is realised
sounds less absurd in the second dream than in the first; it is
made here with a more skilful utilisation of facts as points of
attachment, something like a well-constructed slander, where
“there is something in it.” For my friend R. had at that
time the vote of a professor from the department against him,
and my friend N. had himself unsuspectingly furnished me
with the material for slander. Nevertheless, I repeat, the
dream seems to me to require further elucidation.

I remember now that the dream contains still another
portion which so far our interpretation has not taken into
account. After it occurs to me that my friend R. is my uncle,
I feel great affection for him. To whom does this feeling
belong? For my uncle Joseph, of course, I have never had
any feelings of affection. For years my friend R. has been
beloved and dear to me; but if I were to go to him and ex-
press my feelings for him in terms which came anywhere near
corresponding to the degree of affection in the dream, he
would doubtless be surprised. My affection for him seems
untrue and exaggerated, something like my opinion of his
psychic qualities, which I express by fusing his personality
with that of my uncle; but it is exaggerated in an opposite
sense. But now a new state of affairs becomes evident to me.

The affection in the dream does not belong to the hidden
content, to the thoughts behind the dream; it stands in
opposition to this content; it is calculated to hide the informa-
tion which interpretation may bring. Probably this is its
very purpose. I recall with what resistance I applied myself
to the work of interpretation, how long I tried to postpone it,
and how I declared the dream to be sheer nonsense. I know
from my psychoanalytical treatments how such condemna-
tion is to be interpreted. It has no value as affording in-
formation, but only as the registration of an affect. If my
little daughter does not like an apple which is offered her, she
asserts that the apple has a bitter taste, without even having
tasted it. If my patients act like the little girl, I know that
it is a question of a notion which they want to suppress. The
same applies to my dream. I do not want to interpret it
because it contains something to which I object. After the

120

THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

interpretation of the dream has been completed, I find out
what it was I objected to; it was the assertion that R. is a
simpleton. I may refer the affection which I feel for R. not
to the hidden dream thoughts, but rather to this unwilling-
ness of mine. If my dream as compared with its hidden content
is disfigured at this point, and is disfigured, moreover, into
something opposite, then the apparent affection in the dream
serves the purpose of disfigurement; or, in other words, the
disfigurement is here shown to be intended: it is a means of
dissimulation. My dream thoughts contain an unfavourable
reference to R.; in order that I may not become aware of it,
its opposite, a feeling of affection for him, makes its way into
the dream.

The fact here recognised might be of universal applica-
bility. As the examples in Section III. have shown, there are
dreams which are undisguised wish-fulfilments. Wherever
a wish-fulfilment is unrecognisable and concealed, there must
be present a feeling of repulsion towards this wish, and in
consequence of this repulsion the wish is unable to gain ex-
pression except in a disfigured state. I shall try to find a case
in social life which is parallel to this occurrence in the inner
psychic life. Where in social life can a similar disfigurement
of a psychic act be found? Only where two persons are in
question, one of whom possesses a certain power, while the
other must have a certain consideration for this power. This
second person will then disfigure his psychic actions, or, as
we may say, he will dissimulate. The politeness which I
practise every day is largely dissimulation of this kind. If I
interpret my dreams for the benefit of the reader I am forced
to make such distortions. The poet also complains about such
disfigurement:

“You may not tell the best that you know to the youngsters.”
The political writer who has unpleasant truths to tell to
the government finds himself in the same position. If he
tells them without reserve, the government will suppress
them—subsequently in case of a verbal expression of opinion,
preventatively, if they are to be published in print. The
writer must fear censure; he therefore modifies and disfigures
the expression of his opinion. He finds himself compelled,

121

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

according to the sensitiveness of this censure, either to re-
strain himself from certain particular forms of attack or to
speak in allusion instead of direct designations. Or he must
disguise his objectionable statement in a garb that seems
harmless. He may, for instance, tell of an occurrence between
two mandarins in the Orient, while he has the officials of his
own country in view. The stricter the domination of the
censor, the more extensive becomes the disguise, and often
the more humorous the means employed to put the reader
back on the track of the real meaning.

The correspondence between the phenomena of the censor
and those of dream distortion, which may be traced in detail,
justifies us in assuming similar conditions for both. We
should then assume in each human being, as the primary
cause of dream formation, two psychic forces (streams, systems),
of which one constitutes the wish expressed by the dream,
while the other acts as a censor upon this dream wish, and by
means of this censoring forces a distortion of its expression.
The only question is as to the basis of the authority of this
second instance ^* by virtue of which it may exercise its censor-
ship. If we remember that the hidden dream thoughts are
not conscious before analysis, but that the apparent dream
content is remembered as conscious, we easily reach the
assumption that admittance to consciousness is the privilege
of the second instance. Nothing can reach consciousness
from the first system which has not first passed the second
instance, and the second instance lets nothing pass without
exercising its rights and forcing such alterations upon the
candidate for admission to consciousness as are pleasant to
itself. We are here forming a very definite conception of the
“essence” of consciousness; for us the state of becoming
conscious is a particular psychic act, different from and
independent of becoming fixed or of being conceived, and
consciousness appears to us as an organ of sense, which per-
ceives a content presented from another source. It may be
shown that psychopathology cannot possibly dispense with
these fundamental assumptions. We may reserve a more
thorough examination of these for a later time.

^*The word is here used in the original Latin sense instantia, meaning
energy, continuance or persistence in doing. (Translator.)

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THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

If I keep in mind the idea of the two psychic instances and
their relations to consciousness, I find in the sphere of politics
a very exact analogy for the extraordinary affection which I
feel for my friend R., who suffers such degradation in the
course of the dream interpretation. I turn my attention to
a political state in which a ruler, jealous of his rights, and a
live public opinion are in conflict with each other. The people
are indignant against an official whom they hate, and demand
his dismissal; and in order not to show that he is compelled
to respect the public wish, the autocrat will expressly confer
upon the official some great honour, for which there would
otherwise have been no occasion. Thus the second instance
referred to, which controls access to consciousness, honours
my friend R. with a profusion of extraordinary tenderness,
because the wish activities of the first system, in accordance
with a particular interest which they happen to be pursuing,
are inclined to put him down as a simpleton.^*

Perhaps we shall now begin to suspect that dream inter-
pretation is capable of giving us hints about the structure
of our psychic apparatus which we have thus far expected in
vain from philosophy. We shall not, however, follow this
track, but return to our original problem as soon as we have
cleared up the subject of dream-disfigurement. The question
has arisen how dreams with disagreeable content can be
analysed as the fulfilments of wishes. We see now that this
is possible in case dream-disfigurement has taken place, in
case the disagreeable content serves only as a disguise for
what is wished. Keeping in mind our assumptions in regard
to the two psychic instances, we may now proceed to say:
disagreeable dreams, as a matter of fact, contain something

^*Such hypocritical dreams are not unusual occurrences with me or
with others. While I am working up a certain scientific problem, I am
visited for many nights in rapid succession by a somewhat confusing dream
which has as its content reconciliation with a friend long ago dropped. 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 little con-
sideration still left for the person in question, to drop him completely, but it
disguised itself shamefacedly in the opposite feeling. I have reported a
“hypocritical oedipus dream” of a person, in which the hostile feelings and
the wishes of death of the dream thoughts were replaced by manifest tender-
ness. (“Typisches Beispiel eines verkappten Oedipustraumes,” Zentralblatt
für Psychoanalyse, Bd. 1, Heft 1–11, 1910.) Another class of hypocritical
dreams will be reported in another place.

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DISTORTION IN DREAMS

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 the sense that every dream originates in the
first instance, while the second instance acts towards the
dream only in a repelling, not in a creative manner. If we
limit ourselves to a consideration of what the second instance
contributes to the dream, we can never understand the dream.
If we do so, all the riddles which the authors have found in the
dream remain unsolved.

That the dream actually has a secret meaning, which turns
out to be the fulfilment of a wish, must be proved afresh for
every case by means of an analysis. I therefore select several
dreams which have painful contents and attempt an analysis
of them. They are partly dreams of hysterical subjects,
which require long preliminary statements, and now and then
also an examination of the psychic processes which occur in
hysteria. I cannot, however, avoid this added difficulty in
the exposition.

When I give a psychoneurotic patient analytical treatment,
dreams are always, as I have said, the subject of our dis-
cussion. It must, therefore, give him all the psychological
explanations through whose aid I myself have come to an
understanding of his symptoms, and here I undergo an un-
sparing criticism, which is perhaps not less keen than that I
must expect from my colleagues. Contradiction of the thesis
that all dreams are the fulfilments of wishes is raised by my
patients with perfect regularity. Here are several examples of
the dream material which is offered me to refute this position.

“You always tell me that the dream is a wish fulfilled,”
begins a clever 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 is as follows :—

“I want to give a supper, but having nothing at hand except
some smoked salmon, I think of going marketing, but I remember
that it is Sunday afternoon, when all the shops are closed. I
next try to telephone to some caterers, but the telephone is out of
order. Thus I must resign my wish to give a supper.”

I answer, of course, that only the analysis can decide the
meaning of this dream, although I admit that at first sight

124

THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

it seems sensible and coherent, and looks like the opposite of
a wish-
fulfilment. “But what occurrence has given rise to
this dream?” I ask. “You know that the stimulus for a
dream always lies among the experiences of the preceding
day.”
Analysis.—The husband of the patient, an upright and
conscientious wholesale butcher, had told her the day before
that he is growing too fat, and that he must, therefore, begin
treatment for obesity. He was going to get up early, take
exercise, keep to a strict diet, and above all accept no more
invitations to suppers. She proceeds laughingly to relate
how her husband at an inn table had made the acquaintance
of an artist, who insisted upon painting his portrait because
he, the painter, had never found such an expressive head.
But her husband had answered in his rough way, that he was
very thankful for the honour, but that he was quite convinced
that a portion of the backside of a pretty young girl would
please the artist better than his whole face.^* She said that
she was at the time very much in love with her husband, and
teased him a good deal. She had also asked him not to send
her any caviare. What does that mean?
As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long time to eat
a caviare sandwich every forenoon, but had grudged herself
the expense. Of course, she would at once get the caviare
from her husband, as soon as she asked him for it. But she
had begged him, on the contrary, not to send her the caviare,
in order that she might tease him about it longer.
This explanation seems far-
fetched to me. Unadmitted
motives are in the habit of hiding behind such unsatisfactory
explanations. We are reminded of subjects hypnotised by
Bernheim, who carried out a posthypnotic order, and who, upon
being asked for their motives, instead of answering: “I do
not know why I did that,” had to invent a reason that was
obviously inadequate. Something similar is probably the
case with the caviare of my patient. I see that she is com-
pelled to create an unfulfilled wish in life. Her dream also
shows the reproduction of the wish as accomplished. But why
does she need an unfulfilled wish?

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

125

The ideas so far produced are insufficient for the inter-
pretation of the dream. I beg for more. After a short pause,
which corresponds to the overcoming of a resistance, she
reports further that the day before she had made a visit to a
friend, of whom she is really jealous, because her husband is
always praising this woman so much. Fortunately, this
friend is very lean and thin, and her husband likes well-rounded
figures. Now of what did this lean friend speak? Naturally
of her wish to become somewhat stouter. She also asked my
patient: “When are you going to invite us again? You
always have such a good table.”

Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I may say to the
patient: “It is just as though you had thought at the time
of the request: ‘Of course, I’ll invite you, so you can eat
yourself fat at my house 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. The resolution of your husband
to refuse invitations to supper for the sake of getting thin
teaches you that one grows fat on the things served in com-
pany.” Now only some conversation is necessary to confirm
the solution. The smoked salmon in the dream has not yet
been traced. “How did the salmon mentioned in the dream
occur to you?” “Smoked salmon is the favourite dish of
this friend,” she answered. I happen to know the lady, and
may corroborate this by saying that she grudges herself the
salmon just as much as my patient grudges herself the caviare.

The dream admits of still another and more exact inter-
pretation, which is necessitated only by a subordinate circum-
stance. The two interpretations do not contradict one
another, but rather cover each other and furnish a neat
example of the usual ambiguity of dreams as well as of all
other psychopathological formations. We have seen that at
the same time that she dreams of the denial of the wish, the
patient is in reality occupied in securing an unfulfilled wish
(the caviare sandwiches). Her friend, too, had expressed a
wish, namely, to get fatter, and it would not surprise us if
our lady had dreamt that the wish of the friend was not being
fulfilled. For it is her own wish that a wish of her friend’s—

126

for increase in weight—should not 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 intend herself, 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 an unfulfilled wish in reality.
But what is the meaning of this hysterical identification?
To clear this up a thorough exposition is necessary. Identi-
fication is a highly important factor in the mechanism of
hysterical symptoms; by this means patients are enabled
in their symptoms to represent not merely their own experi-
ences, but the experiences of a great number of other persons,
and can suffer, as it were, for a whole mass of people, and fill
all the parts of a drama by means of their own personalities
alone. It will here be objected that this is well-known
hysterical imitation, the ability of hysteric subjects to copy all
the symptoms which impress them when they occur in others,
as though their pity were stimulated to the point of repro-
duction. But this only indicates the way in which the psychic
process is discharged in hysterical imitation; the way in which
a psychic act proceeds and the act itself are two different
things. The latter is slightly more complicated than one is
apt to imagine the imitation of hysterical subjects to be: it
corresponds to an unconscious concluded process, as an
example will show. The physician who has a female patient
with a particular kind of twitching, lodged in the company of
other patients in the same room of the hospital, is not surprised
when some morning he learns that this peculiar hysterical attack
has found imitations. He simply says to himself: The others
have seen her and have done likewise: that is psychic infection.
Yes, but psychic infection proceeds in somewhat the following
manner: As a rule, patients know more about one another
than the physician knows about each of them, and they are
concerned about each other when the visit of the doctor is
over. Some of them have an attack to-
day: soon it is known
among the rest that a letter from home, a return of love-
sickness or the like, is the cause of it. Their sympathy is aroused,
and the following syllogism, which does not reach conscious-

127

ness, is completed in them : “If it is possible to have this kind
of an attack from such causes, I too may have this kind of an
attack, for I have the same reasons.” If this were a cycle
capable of becoming conscious, it would perhaps express
itself in fear of getting the same attack; but it takes place
in another psychic sphere, and, therefore, ends in the realisa-
tion of the dreaded symptom. Identification is therefore
not a simple imitation, but a sympathy based upon the same
etiological claim; it expresses an “as though,” and refers to
some common quality which has remained in the unconscious.

Identification is most often used in hysteria to express
sexual community. An hysterical woman identifies herself
most readily—although not exclusively—with persons with
whom she has had sexual relations, or who have sexual inter-
course with the same persons as herself. Language takes
such a conception into consideration : two lovers are “one.”

In the hysterical phantasy, as well as in the dream, it is suffi-
cient for the identification if one thinks of sexual relations,
whether or not they become real. The patient, then, only
follows the rules of the hysterical thought processes when she
gives expression to her jealousy of her friend (which, moreover,
she herself admits to be unjustified, in that she puts herself in
her place and identifies herself with her by creating a symptom
—the denied wish). I might further clarify the process speci-
fically as follows : She puts herself in the place of her friend
in the dream, 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 the esteem of her husband.^*

The contradiction to my theory of dreams in the case of
another female patient, the most witty among all my dreamers,
was solved in a simpler manner, although according to the
scheme that the non-fulfilment of one wish signifies the fulfil-
ment of another. I had one day explained to her that the
dream is a wish-fulfilment. The next day she brought me a
dream to the effect that she was travelling with her mother-in-

^*I myself regret the introduction of such passages from the psycho-
pathology of hysteria, which, because of their fragmentary representation
and of being torn from all connection with the subject, cannot have a very
enlightening influence. If these passages are capable of throwing light upon
the intimate relations between the dream and the psychoneuroses, they have
served the purpose for which I have taken them up.

128

law to their common summer resort. Now I knew that she
had struggled violently against spending the summer in the
neighbourhood of her mother-in-law. I also knew that she had
luckily avoided her mother-in-law by renting an estate in a
far-
distant country resort. Now the dream reversed this
wished-
for solution ; was not this in the flattest contradiction
to my theory of wish-
fulfilment in the dream ? Certainly, it
was only necessary to draw the inferences from this dream in
order to get at its interpretation. According to this dream, I
was in the wrong. It was thus her wish that I should be in the
wrong, and this wish the dream showed her as fulfilled. But the
wish that I should be in the wrong, which was fulfilled in the
theme of the country home, referred to a more serious matter.
At that time I had made up my mind, from the material
furnished by her analysis, that something of significance for her
illness must have occurred at a certain time in her life. She
had denied it because it was not present in her memory. We
soon came to see that I was in the right. Her wish that I
should be in the wrong, which is transformed into the dream, thus
corresponded to the justifiable wish that those things, which at
the time had only been suspected, had never occurred at all.

Without an analysis, and merely by means of an assumption,
I took the liberty of interpreting a little occurrence in the case
of a friend, who had been my colleague through the eight
classes of the Gymnasium. He once heard a lecture of mine
delivered to a small assemblage, on the novel subject of the
dream as the fulfilment of a wish. He went home, dreamt
that he had lost all his suits-
he was a lawyer–and then com-
plained to me about it. I took refuge in the evasion : “ One
can’t win all one’s suits,” but I thought to myself : “ If for
eight years I sat as Primus on the first bench, while he moved
around somewhere in the middle of the class, may he not
naturally have had a wish from his boyhood days that I, too,
might for once completely disgrace myself ? ”

In the same way another dream of a more gloomy character
was offered me by a female patient as a contradiction to my
theory of the wish-
dream. The 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 at
her house. Otto was my favourite ; it was I who really

I

brought him up. I like the other little fellow, too, but
course not nearly as much as the dead one. Now I dream,
last night that I saw 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 like the time of little Otto’s
death, which shocked me so profoundly. Now tell me, what
does this mean? You know me: am I really bad enough to
wish my sister to lose the only child she has left? Or does the
dream mean that I wish Charles to be dead rather than Otto,
whom I like so much better?”

I assured her that this interpretation was impossible.
After some reflection I was able to give her the interpretation
of the dream, which I subsequently made her confirm.

Having become an orphan at an early age, the girl had
been brought up in the house of a much older sister, and had
met among the friends and visitors who came to the house, a
man who made a lasting impression upon her heart. It
looked for a time as though these barely expressed relations
were to end in marriage, but this happy culmination was
frustrated by the sister, whose motives have never found a
complete explanation. After the break, the man who was
loved by our patient avoided the house: she herself became
independent some time after little Otto’s death, to whom her
affection had now turned. But she did not succeed in freeing
herself from the inclination for her sister’s friend in which
she had become involved. Her pride commanded her to
avoid him; but it was impossible for her to transfer her love
to the other suitors who presented themselves in order.
Whenever the man whom she loved, who was a member of
the literary profession, announced a lecture anywhere, she
was sure to be found in the audience; she also seized every
other opportunity to see him from a distance unobserved by
him. I remembered that on the day before she had told me
that the Professor was going to a certain concert, and that
she was also going there, in order to enjoy the sight of him.
This was on the day of the dream; and the concert was to
take place 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 event which had happened
after the death of little Otto. She answered immediately :

Certainly; at that time the Professor returned after a long
absence, and I saw him once more beside the coffin of little
Otto.” It was exactly as I had expected. I interpreted
the dream in the following manner : If now the other boy
were to die, the same thing would be repeated. You would
spend the day with your sister, the Professor would surely
come in order to offer condolence, and you would see him again
under the same circumstances as at that time. The dream
signifies nothing but this wish of yours to see him again,
against which you are fighting inwardly. I know that you
are carrying the ticket for to-day’s concert in your bag. Your
dream is a dream of impatience; it has anticipated the
meeting which is to take place to-day by several hours.”

In order to disguise her wish she had obviously selected a
situation in which wishes of that sort are commonly sup-
pressed—a situation which is so filled with sorrow that love is
not thought of. And yet, it is very easily probable that even
in the actual situation at the bier of the second, more dearly
loved boy, which the dream copied faithfully, she had not
been able to suppress her feelings of affection for the visitor
 

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DISTORTION IN DREAMS

haunted by the memory that Büchse (as well as “box”) is
used in vulgar speech to designate the female genital organ.
It was therefore possible, making a certain allowance for her
notions on the subject of topographical anatomy, to assume
that the child in the box signified a child in the womb of the
mother. At this stage of the explanation she no longer denied
that the picture of the dream really corresponded to one of
her wishes. Like so many other young women, she was by
no means happy when she became pregnant, and admitted 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 hit the child within. The dead child was, therefore,
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 recognised after so long
an interval. For there had been many changes meanwhile.

The group of dreams to which the two last mentioned
belong, having as content the death of beloved relatives, will
be considered again under the head of “Typical Dreams.” I
shall there 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 generalisation of
the theory of wishing in dreams, I am indebted, not to a
patient, but to an intelligent jurist of my acquaintance. “I
dream,” my informant tells me, “that I am walking in front
of my house with a lady on my arm. Here a closed wagon is
waiting, a gentleman steps up to me, gives his authority as an
agent of the police, and demands that I should follow him. I
only ask for time in which to arrange my affairs. Can you
possibly suppose this is a wish of mine to be arrested ?”
“Of course not,” I must 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 newly born child ?”
“That is true” ^* “And under what circumstances did you

^*It often happens that a dream is told incompletely, and that a recollec-
tion of the omitted portions appears only in the course of the analysis.
These portions subsequently fitted in, regularly furnish the key to the
interpretation. Cf. below, about forgetting in dreams.

132

dream ; what happened on the evening before ? ” “ I would
rather not tell you that ; it is a delicate matter.” “ But I
must have it, otherwise we must forgo the interpretation of
the dream.” “ Well, then, I will tell you. I spent the night,
not at home, but at the house of a lady who means very much
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 a child ? ” “ No ; that
might betray us.” “ Then you do not practise normal
coitus ? ” “ I take the precaution to withdraw before eja-
culation.” “ Am I permitted to assume that you did this trick
several times during the night, and that in the morning you
were not quite sure whether you had succeeded ? ” “ That
might be the case.” “ Then your dream is the fulfilment of
a wish. By means of it you secure the assurance that you
have not begotten a child, or, what amounts to the same thing,
that you have killed a child. I can easily demonstrate the
connecting links. Do you remember, a few days ago we were
talking about the distress of matrimony (Ehenot), and about
the inconsistency of permitting the practice of coitus as long
as no impregnation takes place, while every delinquency after
the ovum and the semen meet and a fœtus is formed is
punished as a crime ? In connection with this, we also re-
called the mediæval controversy about the moment of time at
which the soul is really lodged in the fœtus, since the concept
of murder becomes admissible only from that point on. Doubt-
less you also know the gruesome poem by Lenau, which puts
infanticide and the prevention of children on the same plane.”
“ Strangely enough, I had happened to think of Lenau during
the afternoon.” “ Another echo of your dream. And now
I shall demonstrate to you another subordinate wish-
fulfilment in your dream. You walk in front of your house with the lady
on your arm. So you take her home, instead of spending the
night at her house, as you do in actuality. 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
reason. From my essay on the etiology of anxiety neuroses,
you will see that I note interrupted coitus as one of the factors
which cause the development of neurotic fear. It would be

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DISTORTION IN DREAMS

consistent with this that if after repeated cohabitation of the
kind mentioned you should be left in an uncomfortable mood,
which now becomes an element in the composition of your
dream. You also make use of this unpleasant state of mind to
conceal the wish-
fulfilment. Furthermore, the mention of
infanticide has not yet been explained. Why does this crime,
which is peculiar to females, occur to you?” “I shall confess
to you that I was involved in such an affair years ago. Through
my fault a girl tried to protect herself from the consequences
of a liaison with me by securing an abortion. I had nothing
to do with carrying out the plan, but I was naturally for a
long time worried lest the affair might be discovered.” “I
understand; this recollection furnished a second reason why
the supposition that you had done your trick badly must have
been painful to you.”

A young physician, who had heard this dream of my
colleague when it was told, must have felt implicated by it,
for he hastened to imitate it in a dream of his own, applying
its mode of thinking to another subject. The day before he
had handed in a declaration of his income, which was perfectly
honest, because he had little to declare. He dreamt that an
acquaintance of his came from a meeting of the tax commission
and informed him that all the other declarations of income
had passed uncontested, but that his own had awakened
general suspicion, and that he would be punished with a heavy
fine. The dream is a poorly-
concealed fulfilment of the wish
to be known as a physician with a large income. It likewise
recalls the story of the young girl who was advised against
accepting her suitor because he was a man of quick temper
who would surely treat her to blows after they were married.
The answer of the girl was: “I wish he would strike me!”
Her wish to be married is so strong that she takes into the
bargain the discomfort which is said to be connected with
matrimony, and which is predicted for her, and even raises it
to a wish.

If I group the very frequently occurring dreams of this
sort, which seem flatly to contradict my theory, in that they
contain the denial of a wish or some occurrence decidedly
unwished for, under the head of “counter wish-
dreams,” I
observe that they may all be referred to two principles, of

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THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

which one has not yet been mentioned, although it plays a
large part in the dreams of human beings. One of the motives
inspiring these dreams is the wish that I should appear in the
wrong. These dreams regularly occur in the course of my
treatment if the patient shows a resistance against me, and I
can count with a large degree of certainty upon causing such
a dream after I have once explained to the patient my theory
that the dream is a wish-
fulfilment.^* I may even expect this
to be the case in a dream merely in order to fulfil the wish
that I may appear in the wrong. The last dream which I
shall tell from those occurring in the course of treatment
again shows this very thing. A young girl who has struggled
hard to continue my treatment, against the will of her re-
latives and the authorities whom she has consulted, dreams as
follows : She is forbidden at home 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 say to 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 like that, but one of
her brothers, the very 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 that this brother should
remain in the right ; and she does not try to justify this
brother merely in the dream ; it is her purpose in life and the
motive for her being ill.

The other motive for counter wish-
dreams is so clear that
there is danger of overlooking it, as for some time happened in
my own case. In the sexual make-
up of many people there is
a masochistic component, which has arisen through the con-
version 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 in chastisement of the soul.

^*Similar “counter wish-
dreams” have been repeatedly reported to me
within the last few years by my pupils who thus reacted to their first en-
counter with the “wish theory of the dream.”

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DISTORTION IN DREAMS

It is obvious that such persons can have counter wish-
dreams and disagreeable dreams, which, however, for them are nothing
but wish-fulfilments, affording satisfaction for their masochistic
inclinations. Here is such a dream. A young man, who has
in earlier years tormented his elder brother, towards whom he
was homosexually inclined, but who has undergone a complete
change of character, has the following dream, which consists
of three parts: (1) He is “insulted” by his brother. (2) Two
adults are caressing each other with homosexual intentions. (3)
His brother has sold the enterprise whose management the young
man reserved for his own future. He awakens from the last
mentioned dream with the most unpleasant feelings, and yet
it is a masochistic wish-dream, which might be translated:
It would serve me quite right if my brother were to make that
sale against my interest, as a punishment for all the torments
which he has suffered at my hands.

I hope that the above discussion and examples will suffice—
until further objection can be raised—to make it seem credible
that even dreams with a painful content are to be analysed
as the fulfilments of wishes. Nor will it seem a matter of
chance that in the course of interpretation one always happens
upon subjects of which one does not like to speak or think.
The disagreeable sensation which such dreams arouse is
simply identical with the antipathy which endeavours—usually
with success—to restrain us from the treatment or discussion
of such subjects, and which must be overcome by all of us, if, in
spite of its unpleasantness, we find it necessary to take the
matter in hand. But this disagreeable sensation, which
occurs also in dreams, does not preclude the existence of a
wish; everyone has wishes which he would not like to tell to
others, which he does not want to admit even to himself. We
are, on other grounds, justified in connecting the disagreeable
character of all these dreams with the fact of dream disfigure-
ment, and in concluding that these dreams are distorted, and
that the wish-fulfilment in them is disguised until recognition
is impossible for no other reason than that a repugnance, a
will to suppress, exists in relation to the subject-matter of
the dream or in relation to the wish which the dream creates.
Dream disfigurement, then, turns out in reality to be an act
of the censor. We shall take into consideration everything

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THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

which the analysis of disagreeable dreams has brought to
light if we reword our formula as follows: The dream is the
(disguised) fulfilment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish.^*

Now there still remain as a particular species of dreams
with painful content, dreams of anxiety, the inclusion of
which under dreams of wishing will find least acceptance with
the uninitiated. But I can settle the problem of anxiety
dreams in very short order; for what they may reveal is not
a new aspect of the dream problem; it is a question in their
case of understanding neurotic anxiety in general. The fear
which we experience in the dream is only seemingly explained
by the dream content. If we subject the content of the
dream to analysis, we become aware that the dream fear is no
more justified by the dream content than the fear in a phobia
is justified by the idea upon which the phobia depends. For
example, it is true that it is possible to fall out of a window,
and that some care must be exercised when one is near a
window, but it is inexplicable why the anxiety in the corre-
sponding phobia is so great, and why it follows its victims to
an extent so much greater than is warranted by its origin.
The same explanation, then, which applies to the phobia
applies also to the dream of anxiety. In both cases the
anxiety is only superficially attached to the idea which accom-
panies it and comes from another source.

On account of the intimate relation of dream fear to neurotic
fear, discussion of the former obliges me to refer to the latter.
In a little essay on “The Anxiety Neurosis,”^† I maintained
that neurotic fear has its origin in the sexual life, and corre-
sponds to a libido which has been turned away from its object
and has not succeeded in being applied. From this formula,
which has since proved its validity more and more clearly,
we may deduce the conclusion that the content of anxiety
dreams is of a sexual nature, the libido belonging to which

^*We may mention here the simplification and modification of this
fundamental formula, propounded by Otto Rank: “On the basis and with
the help of repressed infantile sexual material, the dream regularly repre-
sents as fulfilled actual, and as a rule also erotic, wishes, in a disguised and
symbolic form.” (“Ein Traum, der sich selbst deutet,” Jahrbuch, v., Bleuler-
Freud, II. B., p. 519, 1910.)

^†See Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses, p. 133, trans-
lated by A. A. Brill, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, Monograph
Series.

137

content has been transformed into fear. Later on I shall
have opportunity to support this assertion by the analysis of
several dreams of neurotics. I shall have occasion to revert
to the determinations in anxiety dreams and their com-
patibility with the theory of wish-fulfilment when I again
attempt to approach the theory of dreams.