3

IV.

WE are compelled to assume that such
transformation of scene has also taken place
in intricate dreams, though we do not know
whether it has encountered any possible
desire. The dream instanced at the com-
mencement, which we analysed somewhat
thoroughly, did give us occasion in two
places to suspect something of the kind.
Analysis brought out that my wife was
occupied with others at table, and that I
did not like it; in the dream itself exactly
the opposite occurs, for the person who
replaces my wife gives me her undivided
attention. But can one wish for anything
pleasanter after a disagreeable incident than
that the exact contrary should have occur-
red, just as the dream has it? The stinging
thought in the analysis, that I have never
had anything for nothing, is similarly con-
 

34

nected with the woman’s remark in the
dream: “You have always had such beauti-
ful eyes.” Some portion of the opposition
between the latent and manifest content of
the dream must be therefore derived from
the realisation of a wish.

Another manifestation of the dream work
which all incoherent dreams have in com-
mon is still more noticeable. Choose any in-
stance, and compare the number of separate
elements in it, or the extent of the dream,
if written down, with the dream thoughts
yielded by analysis, and of which but a
trace can be refound in the dream itself.
There can be no doubt that the dream
working has resulted in an extraordinary
compression or condensation. It is not
at first easy to form an opinion as to the
extent of the condensation; the more deeply
you go into the analysis, the more deeply
you are impressed by it. There will be
found no factor in the dream whence the
chains of associations do not lead in two or
more directions,—no scene which has not

35

ON DREAMS

been pieced together out of two or more
impressions and events. For instance, I
once dreamt about a kind of swimming-bath
where the bathers suddenly separated in
all directions; at one place on the edge a
person stood bending towards one of the
bathers as if to drag him out. The scene
was a composite one, made up out of an
event that occurred at the time of puberty,
and of two pictures, one of which I had
seen just shortly before the dream. The
two pictures were The Surprise in the
Bath, from Schwind’s Cycle of the Melusine
(note the bathers suddenly separating), and
a picture of The Flood, by an Italian
master. The little incident was that I once
witnessed a lady, who had tarried in the
swimming-
bath until the men’s hour, being
helped out of the water by the swimming-
master. The scene in the dream which
was selected for analysis led to a whole group
of reminiscences, each one of which had
contributed to the dream content. First of
all came the little episode from the time of

36

my courting, of which I have already
spoken; the pressure of a hand under the
table gave rise in the dream to the “under
the table,” which I had subsequently to
find a place for in my recollection. There
was, of course, at the time not a word about
“undivided attention.” Analysis taught
me that this factor is the realisation of a
desire through its contradictory and re-
lated to the behaviour of my wife at the table
d’hôte. An exactly similar and much more
important episode of our courtship, one
which separated us for an entire day, lies
hidden behind this recent recollection. The
intimacy, the hand resting upon the knee,
refers to a quite different connection and
to quite other persons. This element in
the dream becomes again the starting-
point of two distinct series of reminiscences,
and so on.

The stuff of the dream thoughts which
has been accumulated for the formation of
the dream scene must be naturally fit for
this application. There must be one or

37

ON DREAMS

more common factors. The dream work
proceeds like Francis Galton with his
family photographs. The different ele-
ments are put one on top of the other; what
is common to the composite picture stands
out clearly, the opposing details cancel each
other. This process of reproduction partly
explains the wavering statements, of a
peculiar vagueness, in so many elements of
the dream. For the interpretation of dreams
this rule holds good: When analysis discloses
uncertainty as to either–or read and, taking
each section of the apparent alternatives as
a separate outlet for a series of impressions.

When there is nothing in common be-
tween the dream thoughts, the dream work
takes the trouble to create a something, in
order to make a common presentation
feasible in the dream. The simplest way to
approximate two dream thoughts, which
have as yet nothing in common, consists in
making such a change in the actual ex-
pression of one idea as will meet a slight
responsive recasting in the form of the

38

other idea. The process is analogous to
that of rhyme, when consonance supplies the
desired common factor. A good deal of the
dream work consists in the creation of those
frequently very witty, but often exagger-
ated, digressions. These vary from the
common presentation in the dream content
to dream thoughts which are as varied as
are the causes in form and essence which
give rise to them. In the analysis of our
example of a dream, I find a like case of the
transformation of a thought in order that
it might agree with another essentially
foreign one. In following out the analysis I
struck upon the thought: I should like to
have something for nothing. But this for-
mula is not serviceable to the dream. Hence
it is replaced by another one: “I should
like to enjoy something free of cost.”^*
The word “kost” (taste), with its double

^*“Ich möchte gerne etwas geniessen ohne
‘Kosten’ zu haben.” A pun upon the word
“kosten,” which has two meanings—“ taste ”
and “cost.” In “Die Traumdeutung,” third

39

ON DREAMS

meaning, is appropriate to a table d’hôte;
it, moreover, is in place through the special
sense in the dream. At home if there is a
dish which the children decline, their mother
first tries gentle persuasion, with a “Just
taste it.” That the dream work should
unhesitatingly use the double meaning of
the word is certainly remarkable; ample
experience has shown, however, that the
occurrence is quite usual.

Through condensation of the dream cer-
tain constituent parts of its content are
explicable which are peculiar to the dream
life alone, and which are not found in the
waking state. Such are the composite
and mixed persons, the extraordinary mixed

edition, p. 71 footnote, Professor Freud remarks
that “the finest example of dream interpretation
left us by the ancients is based upon a pun”
(from “The Interpretation of Dreams,” by
Artemidorus Daldianus). “Moreover, dreams are
so intimately bound up with language that
Ferenczi truly points out that every tongue has its
own language of dreams. A dream is as a rule un-
translatable into other languages.”—Translator

40

figures, creations comparable with the fan-
tastic animal compositions of Orientals; a
moment’s thought and these are reduced to
unity, whilst the fancies of the dream are
ever formed anew in an inexhaustible pro-
fusion. Everyone knows such images in
his own dreams; manifold are their origins.
I can build up a person by borrowing one
feature from one person and one from
another, or by giving to the form of one the
name of another in my dream. I can also
visualise one person, but place him in a
position which has occurred to another.
There is a meaning in all these cases when
different persons are amalgamated into one
substitute. Such cases denote an “and,”
a “just like,” a comparison of the original
person from a certain point of view, a com-
parison which can be also realised in the
dream itself. As a rule, however, the
identity of the blended persons is only dis-
coverable by analysis, and is only indicated
in the dream content by the formation of
the “combined” person.

41

ON DREAMS

The same diversity in their ways of for-
mation and the same rules for its solution
hold good also for the innumerable medley
of dream contents, examples of which I need
scarcely adduce. Their strangeness quite
disappears when we resolve not to place
them on a level with the objects of per-
ception as known to us when awake, but to
remember that they represent the art of
dream condensation by an exclusion of un-
necessary detail. Prominence is given to
the common character of the combination.
Analysis must also generally supply the
common features. The dream says simply:
All these things have an “x” in common.
The decomposition of these mixed images
by analysis is often the quickest way to an
interpretation of the dream. Thus I once
dreamt that I was sitting with one of my
former university tutors on a bench, which
was undergoing a rapid continuous move-
ment amidst other benches. This was a
combination of lecture-room and moving
staircase. I will not pursue the further

42

ON DREAMS

result of the thought. Another time I was
sitting in a carriage, and on my lap an
object in shape like a top-
hat, which, how-
ever, was made of transparent glass. The
scene at once brought to my mind the
proverb: “He who keeps his hat in his
hand will travel safely through the land.”
By a slight turn the glass hat reminded me
of Auer’s light, and I knew that I was about
to invent something which was to make
me as rich and independent as his invention
had made my countryman, Dr. Auer, of
Welsbach; then I should be able to travel
instead of remaining in Vienna. In the
dream I was travelling with my invention,
with the, it is true, rather awkward glass
top-
hat. {The dream work is peculiarly
adept at representing two contradictory
conceptions by means of the same mixed
image.} Thus, for instance, a woman dreamt
of herself carrying a tall flower-
stalk, as in
the picture of the Annunciation (Chastity-
Mary is her own name), but the stalk was
bedecked with thick white blossoms resem-

43

ON DREAMS

bling camellias (contrast with chastity: La
dame aux Camelias).

A great deal of what we have called
“dream condensation” can be thus formu-
lated. Each one of the elements of the
dream content is overdetermined by the
matter of the dream thoughts; it is not de-
rived from one element of these thoughts,
but from a whole series. These are not
necessarily interconnected in any way, but
may belong to the most diverse spheres of
thought. The dream element truly repre-
sents all this disparate matter in the dream
content. Analysis, moreover, discloses
another side of the relationship between
dream content and dream thoughts. Just
as one element of the dream leads to asso-
ciations with several dream thoughts, so, as
a rule, the one dream thought represents more
than one dream element. The threads of the
association do not simply converge from
the dream thoughts to the dream content,
but on the way they overlap and interweave
in every way.

44

Next to the transformation of one thought
in the scene (its “dramatisation”), conden-
sation is the most important and most
characteristic feature of the dream work.
We have as yet no clue as to the motive
calling for such compression of the content.