100

XII.

WHOSOEVER has firmly accepted this cen
sorship as the chief motive for the distor
tion of dreams will not be surprised to learn
as the result of dream interpretation that
most of the dreams of adults are traced by
analysis to erotic desires. This assertion
is not drawn from dreams obviously of a
sexual nature, which are known to all
dreamers from their own experience, and
are the only ones usually described as
“sexual dreams.” These dreams are ever
sufficiently mysterious by reason of the
choice of persons who are made the objects
of sex, the removal of all the barriers which
cry halt to the dreamer’s sexual needs in
his waking state, the many strange re
minders as to details of what are called
perversions. But analysis discovers that, in
many other dreams in whose manifest con-
 

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ON DREAMS

tent nothing erotic can be found, the work
of interpretation shows them up as, in
reality, realisation of sexual desires; whilst,
on the other hand, that much of the
thought-
making when awake, the thoughts
saved us as surplus from the day only,
reaches presentation in dreams with the
help of repressed erotic desires.

Towards the explanation of this state-
ment, which is no theoretical postulate, it
must be remembered that no other class of
instincts has required so vast a suppression
at the behest of civilisation as the sexual,
whilst their mastery by the highest psych-
ical processes are in most persons soonest
of all relinquished. Since we have learnt
to understand infantile sexuality, often so
vague in its expression, so invariably over-
looked and misunderstood, we are justi-
fied in saying that nearly every civilised
person has retained at some point or other
the infantile type of sex life; thus we
understand that repressed infantile sex
desires furnish the most frequent and most

102

powerful impulses for the formation of
dreams ^*

If the dream, which is the expression of
some erotic desire, succeeds in making its
manifest content appear innocently asexual,
it is only possible in one way. The matter
of these sexual presentations cannot be
exhibited as such, but must be replaced by
allusions, suggestions, and similar indirect
means; differing from other cases of indirect
presentation, those used in dreams must
be deprived of direct understanding. The
means of presentation which answer these
requirements are commonly termed “sym-
bols.” A special interest has been directed
towards these, since it has been observed
that the dreamers of the same language use
the like symbols—indeed, that in certain
cases community of symbol is greater than
community of speech. Since the dreamers

^*Freud, “Three Contributions to Sexual
Theory,” translated by A. A. Brill (Journal of
Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Com-
pany, New York).

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ON DREAMS

do not themselves know the meaning of
the symbols they use, it remains a puzzle
whence arises their relationship with what
they replace and denote. The fact itself
is undoubted, and becomes of importance
for the technique of the interpretation of
dreams, since by the aid of a knowledge of
this symbolism it is possible to understand
the meaning of the elements of a dream,
or parts of a dream, occasionally even the
whole dream itself, without having to ques-
tion the dreamer as to his own ideas. We

thus come near to the popular idea of an
interpretation of dreams, and, on the other
hand, possess again the technique of the
ancients, among whom the interpretation of
dreams was identical with their explanation
through symbolism.

Though the study of dream symbolism
is far removed from finality, we now posses
a series of general statements and of par-
ticular observations which are quite certain.
There are symbols which practically always
have the same meaning: Emperor and Em-

104

press (King and Queen) always mean the
parents; room, a woman,^* and so on. The
sexes are represented by a great variety of
symbols, many of which would be at first
quite incomprehensible had not the clues
to the meaning been often obtained through
other channels.

There are symbols of universal circula-
tion, found in all dreamers, of one range of
speech and culture; there are others of the
narrowest individual significance which an
individual has built up out of his own
material. In the first class those can be
differentiated whose claim can be at once
recognised by the replacement of sexual
things in common speech (those, for in-
stance, arising from agriculture, as repro-
duction, seed) from others whose sexual

^*The words from “and” to “channels” in the
next sentence is a short summary of the passage
in the original. As this book will be read by
other than professional people the passage has
not been translated, in deference to English
opinion.—TRANSLATOR.

105

references appear to reach back to the
earliest times and to the obscurest depths
of our image-
building. The power of build-
ing symbols in both these special forms of
symbols has not died out. Recently dis-
covered things, like the airship, are at once
brought into universal use as sex symbols.
(It would be quite an error to suppose
that a profounder knowledge of dream
symbolism (the “Language of Dreams”)
would make us independent of questioning
the dreamer regarding his impressions about
the dream, and would give us back the whole
technique of ancient dream interpreters.
Apart from individual symbols and the
variations in the use of what is general,
one never knows whether an element in the
dream is to be understood symbolically or
in its proper meaning; the whole content of
the dream is certainly not to be interpreted
symbolically. The knowledge of dream
symbols will only help us in understanding
portions of the dream content, and does not
render the use of the technical rules previ-
 

106

ON DREAMS

ously given at all superfluous. But it must
be of the greatest service in interpreting a
dream just when the impressions of the
dreamer are withheld or are insufficient.
Dream symbolism proves also indispen-
sable for understanding the so-called
“typical” dreams and the dreams that
“repeat themselves.” If the value of the
symbolism of dreams has been so incom-
pletely set out in this brief portrayal, this
attempt will be corrected by reference to
a point of view which is of the highest im-
port in this connection. Dream symbolism
leads us far beyond the dream; it does not
belong only to dreams, but is likewise
dominant in legend, myth, and saga, in wit
and in folklore. It compels us to pursue
the inner meaning of the dream in these
productions. But we must acknowledge
that symbolism is not a result of the dream
work, but is a peculiarity probably of our
unconscious thinking, which furnishes to
the dream work the matter for condensa-
tion, displacement, and dramatisation.)