183

I

THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE OF
DREAM-
PROBLEMS (UP TO 1900)

In the following pages, I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological
technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the
application of this technique, every dream will reveal itself as a psycho-
logical structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a
specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state. Further, I shall
endeavor to elucidate the processes which underlie the strangeness and ob-
scurity of dreams, and to deduce from these processes the nature of the
psychic forces whose conflict or co-
operation is responsible for our dreams.
This done, my investigation will terminate, as it will have reached the
point where the problem of the dream merges into more comprehensive
problems, and to solve these, we must have recourse to material of a differ-
ent kind.

I shall begin by giving a short account of the views of earlier writers
on this subject, and of the status of the dream-
problem in contemporary
science; since in the course of this treatise, I shall not often have occa-
sion to refer to either. In spite of thousands of years of endeavor, little
progress has been made in the scientific understanding of dreams. This
fact has been so universally acknowledged by previous writers on the sub-
ject that it seems hardly necessary to quote individual opinions. The
reader will find, in many stimulating observations, and plenty of inter-
esting material relating to our subject, but little or nothing that concerns
the true nature of the dream, or that solves definitely any of its enigmas.
The educated layman, of course, knows even less of the matter.

The conception of the dream that was held in prehistoric ages by primi-
tive peoples, and the influence which it may have exerted on the forma-
tion of their conceptions of the universe, and of the soul, is a theme of
such great interest that it is only with reluctance that I refrain from deal-
ing with it in these pages. I will refer the reader to the well-
known works
of Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), Herbert Spencer, E. B. Tylor and
other writers; I will only add that we shall not realize the importance o'
 

184

these problems and speculations until we have completed the task of
dream-
interpretation that lies before us.

A reminiscence of the concept of the dream that was held in primitive
times seems to underlie the evaluation of the dream which was current
among the peoples of classical antiquity.¹ They took it for granted that
dreams were related to the world of the supernatural beings in whom they
believed, and that they brought inspirations from the gods and demons.
Moreover, it appeared to them that dreams must serve a special purpose
in respect of the dreamer; that, as a rule, they predicted the future. The
extraordinary variations in the content of dreams, and in the impressions
which they produced on the dreamer, made it, of course, very difficult to
formulate a coherent conception of them, and necessitated manifold
differentiations and group-
formations, according to their value and relia-
bility. The valuation of dreams by the individual philosophers of antiq-
uity naturally depended on the importance which they were prepared to
attribute to manticism in general.

In the two works of Aristotle in which there is mention of dreams, they
are already regarded as constituting a problem of psychology. We are told
that the dream is not god-
sent, that it is not of divine but of daimonic
origin. For nature is really daimonic, not divine; that is to say, the dream
is not a supernatural revelation, but is subject to the laws of the human
spirit, which has, of course, a kinship with the divine. The dream is defined
as the psychic activity of the sleeper, inasmuch as he is asleep. Aristotle
was acquainted with some of the characteristics of the dream-
life; for ex-
ample, he knew that a dream converts the slight sensations perceived in
sleep into intense sensations (“one imagines that one is walking through
fire, and feels hot, if this or that part of the body becomes only quite
slightly warm”), which led him to conclude that dreams might easily
betray to the physician the first indications of an incipient physical change
which escaped observation during the day.¹

As has been said, those writers of antiquity who preceded Aristotle did
not regard the dream as a product of the dream-
ing psyche, but as an in-
spiration of divine origin, and in ancient times, the two opposing tenden-
cies which we shall find throughout the ages in respect of the evaluation
of the dream-
life, were already perceptible. The ancients distinguished be-
tween the true and valuable dreams which were sent to the dreamer as
warnings, or to foretell future events, and the vain, fraudulent and empty
dreams, whose object was to misguide him or lead him to destruction.

¹The following remarks are based on Büchsenschütz’s careful essay, Traum und
Traumdeutung im Altertum (Berlin, 1868).

²The relationship between dreams and disease is discussed by Hippocrates in a chap-
ter of his famous work.

185

Editor’s Note

As the first chapter of this work is nothing but an introduction to the
book proper, it was deemed best for the purposes of this collection of
Freud’s basic writings to omit most of it and to give only those parts that
are in any way pertinent to the themes under later consideration. For it is
of no particular interest or value to the general reader to know everything
held by the ancients and moderns concerning the phenomena of dreams,
up to the appearance of the first German edition of this work in 1900.¹

The author summarizes these views as follows:

The pre-scientific conception of the dream which obtained among the
ancients was, of course, in perfect keeping with their general conception
of the universe, which was accustomed to project as an external reality
that which possessed reality only in the life of the psyche. Further, it
accounted for the main impression made upon the waking life by the
morning memory of the dream; for in this memory the dream, as com-
pared with the rest of the psychic content, seems to be something alien,
coming, as it were, from another world. It would be an error to suppose
that the theory of the supernatural origin of dreams lacks followers even
in our own times; for quite apart from pietistic and mystical writers—
who cling, as they are perfectly justified in doing, to the remnants of the
once predominant realm of the supernatural until these remnants have
been swept away by scientific explanation—we not infrequently find that
quite intelligent persons, who in other respects are averse to anything
of a romantic nature, go so far as to base their religious belief in the exist-
ence and co-operation of superhuman spiritual powers on the inexplicable
nature of the phenomena of dreams (Haffner). The validity ascribed to
the dream-life by certain schools of philosophy—for example, by the
school of Schelling—is a distinct reminiscence of the undisputed belief in
the divinity of dreams which prevailed in antiquity; and for some think-
ers, the mantic or prophetic power of dreams is still a subject of debate.
This is due to the fact that the explanations attempted by psychology are
too inadequate to cope with the accumulated material, however strongly
the scientific thinker may feel that such superstitious doctrines should be
repudiated.

To write a history of our scientific knowledge of the dream problem is
extremely difficult, because, valuable though this knowledge may be in
certain respects, no real progress in a definite direction is as yet dis-
covered.

¹Those who have a special interest in the subject may read The Interpretation of
Dreams, translated by Brill. The Macmillan Co., New York; and Allen & Unwin,
London, 1937.

186

cernible. No real foundation of verified results has hitherto been estab-
lished on which future investigators might continue to build. Every new
author approaches the same problems afresh, and from the very begin-
ning. If I were to enumerate such authors in chronological order, giving
a survey of the opinions which each has held concerning the problems of
the dream, I should be quite unable to draw a clear and complete picture
of the present state of our knowledge on the subject. I have therefore pre-
ferred to base my method of treatment on themes rather than on authors,
and in attempting the solution of each problem of the dream, I shall cite
the material found in the literature of the subject.

But as I have not succeeded in mastering the whole of this literature–
for it is widely dispersed and interwoven with the literature of other sub-
jects–I must ask my readers to rest content with my survey as it stands,
provided that no fundamental fact or important point of view has been
overlooked.

In a supplement to a later German edition, the author adds:

I shall have to justify myself for not extending my summary of the
literature of dream problems to cover the period between the first appear-
ance of this book and the publication of the second edition. This justifica-
tion may not seem very satisfactory to the reader; none the less, to me it
was decisive. The motives which induced me to summarize the treatment
of dreams in the literature of the subject have been exhausted by the fore-
going introduction; to have continued this would have cost me a great
deal of effort and would not have been particularly useful or instructive.
For the interval in question–a period of nine years–has yielded noth-
ing new or valuable as regards the conception of dreams, either in actual
material or in novel points of view. In most of the literature which has
appeared since the publication of my own work, the latter has not been
mentioned or discussed; it has, of course, received the least attention from
the so-called “research workers on dreams,” who have thus afforded a
brilliant example of the aversion to learning anything new so character-
istic of the scientist. “Les savants ne sont pas curieux,” said the scoffer,
Anatole France. If there were such a thing in science as the right of re-
venge, I, in my turn, should be justified in ignoring the literature which
has appeared since the publication of this book. The few reviews which
have appeared in the scientific journals are so full of misconceptions and
lack of comprehension that my only possible answer to my critics would
be a request that they should read this book over again–or perhaps
merely that they should read it!

And in a supplement to the fourth German edition which appeared in
1914, a year after I published the first English translation of this work, he
writes:

187

Since then, the state of affairs has certainly undergone a change; my
contribution to the “interpretation of dreams” is no longer ignored in the
literature of the subject. But the new situation makes it even more impos-
sible to continue the foregoing summary. The Interpretation of Dreams
has evoked a whole series of new contentions and problems, which have
been expounded by the authors in the most varied fashions. But I cannot
discuss these works until I have developed the theories to which their
authors have referred. Whatever has appeared to me as valuable in this
recent literature, I have accordingly reviewed in the course of the follow-
ing exposition.