Freud - Complete Works (189 page)

   There are many sorts of ways in
which figures of this kind can be put together. I may build up a
figure by giving it the features of two people; or I may give it
the
form
of one person but think of it in the dream as
having the
name
of another person; or I may have a visual
picture of one person, but put it in a situation which is
appropriate to another. In all these cases the combination of
different persons into a single representative in the content of
the dream has a meaning; it is intended to indicate an
‘and’ or ‘just as’, or to compare the
original persons with each other in some particular respect, which
may even be specified in the dream itself. As a rule, however, this
common element between the combined persons can only be discovered
by analysis, and is only indicated in the contents of the dream by
the formation of the collective figure.

   The composite structures which
occur in dreams in such immense numbers are put together in an
equal variety of ways, and the same rules apply to their
resolution. There is no need for me to quote any instances. Their
strangeness disappears completely when once we have made up our
minds not to class them with the objects of our waking perception,
but to remember that they are products of dream-condensation and
are emphasizing in an effectively abbreviated form some common
characteristic of the objects which they are thus combining. Here
again the common element has as a rule to be discovered by
analysis. The content of the dream merely says as it were:
‘All these things have an element
x
in common.’
The dissection of these composite structures by means of analysis
is often the shortest way to finding the meaning of a dream. -
Thus, I dreamt on one occasion that I was sitting on a bench with
one of my former University teachers, and that the bench, which was
surrounded by other benches, was moving forward at a rapid pace.
This was a combination of a lecture theatre and a
trottoir
roulant
.¹ I will not pursue this train of ideas further. -
Another time I was sitting in a railway carriage and holding on my
lap an object in the shape of a top-hat
[‘
Zylinderhut
’, literally
‘cylinder-hat’], which however was made of transparent
glass. The situation made me think at once of the proverb:
‘
Mit dem Hute in der Hand kommt man duchs ganze
land
.’² The glass cylinder led me by a short
détour
to think of an incandescent gas-mantle; and I
soon saw that I should like to make a discovery which would make me
as rich and independent as my fellow-countryman Dr. Auer von
Welsbach was made by his, and that I should like to travel instead
of stopping in Vienna. In the dream I was travelling with my
discovery, the hat in the shape of a glass cylinder - a discovery
which, it is true, was not as yet of any great practical use. - The
dream-work is particularly fond of representing two
contrary
ideas by the same composite structure. Thus, for instance, a woman
had a dream in which she saw herself carrying a tall spray of
flowers, such as the angel is represented as holding in pictures of
the Annunciation. (This stood for innocence; incidentally, her own
name was Maria.) On the other hand, the spray was covered with
large white flowers like camellias. (This stood for the opposite of
innocence; it was associated with
La dame aux
camélias
.)

  
¹
[The ‘
trottoir roulant
’
was a moving roadway installed at the Paris Exhibition of
1900.]

  
²
[‘If you go hat in hand, you can
cross the whole land.’]

On Dreams

1069

   A good proportion of what we have
learnt about condensation in dreams may be summarized in this
formula: each element in the content of a dream is
‘overdetermined’ by material in the dream-thoughts; it
is not derived from a
single
element in the dream-thoughts,
but may be traced back to a whole number. These elements need not
necessarily be closely related to each other in the dream-thoughts
themselves; they may belong to the most widely separated regions of
the fabric of those thoughts. A dream-element is, in the strictest
sense of the word, the ‘representative’ of all this
disparate material in the content of the dream. But analysis
reveals yet another side of the complicated relation between the
content of the dream and the dream-thoughts. Just as connections
lead from each element of the dream to several dream-thoughts, so
as a rule a single dream-thought is represented by more than one
dream-element; the threads of association do not simply converge
from the dream-thoughts to the dream-content, they cross and
interweave with each other many times over in the course of their
journey.

   Condensation, together with the
transformation of thoughts into situations
(‘dramatization’), is the most important and peculiar
characteristic of the dream-work. So far, however, nothing has
transpired as to any
motive
necessitating this compression
of the material.

On Dreams

1070

V

   In the case of the complicated
and confused dreams with which we are now concerned, condensation
and dramatization alone are not enough to account for the whole of
the impression that we gain of the dissimilarity between the
content of the dream and the dream-thoughts. We have evidence of
the operation of a third factor, and this evidence deserves careful
sifting.

   First and foremost, when by means
of analysis we have arrived at a knowledge of the dream-thoughts,
we observe that the manifest dream-content deals with quite
different material from the latent thoughts. This, to be sure, is
no more than an appearance, which evaporates under closer
examination, for we find ultimately that the whole of the
dream-content is derived from the dream-thoughts, and that almost
all the dream-thoughts are represented in the dream-content.
Nevertheless, something of the distinction still remains. What
stands out boldly and clearly in the dream as its essential content
must, after analysis, be satisfied with playing an extremely
subordinate role among the dream-thoughts; and what, on the
evidence of our feelings, can claim to be the most prominent among
the dream-thoughts is either not present at all as ideational
material in the content of the dream or is only remotely alluded to
in some obscure region of it. We may put it in this way:
in the
course of the dream-work the psychical intensity passes over from
the thoughts and ideas to which it properly belongs on to others
which in our judgement have no claim to any such emphasis
. No
other process contributes so much to concealing the meaning of a
dream and to making the connection between the dream-content and
the dream-thoughts unrecognizable. In the course of this process,
which I shall describe as ‘dream-displacement’, the
psychical intensity, significance or affective potentiality of the
thoughts is, as we further find, transformed into sensory
vividness. We assume as a matter of course that the most distinct
element in the manifest content of a dream is the most important
one; but in fact it is often an
indistinct
element which
turns out to be the most direct derivative of the essential
dream-thought.

On Dreams

1071

   What I have called
dream-displacement might equally be described as ‘a
transvaluation of psychical values.’ I shall not have given
an exhaustive estimate of this phenomenon, however, unless I add
that this work of displacement or transvaluation is performed to a
very varying degree in different dreams. There are dreams which
come about almost without any displacement. These are the ones
which make sense and are intelligible, such, for instance, as those
which we have recognized as undisguised wishful dreams. On the
other hand, there are dreams in which not a single piece of the
dream-thoughts has retained its own psychical value, or in which
everything that is essential in the dream-thoughts has been
replaced by something trivial. And we can find a complete series of
transitional cases between these two extremes. The more obscure and
confused a dream appears to be, the greater the share in its
construction which may be attributed to the factor of
displacement.

   Our specimen dream exhibits
displacement to this extent at least, that its content seems to
have a different
centre
from its dream-thoughts. In the
foreground of the dream-content a prominent place is taken by a
situation in which a woman seems to be making advances to me; while
in the dream-thoughts the chief emphasis is laid on a wish for once
to enjoy unselfish love, love which ‘costs nothing’ -
an idea concealed behind the phrase about ‘beautiful
eyes’ and the far-fetched allusion to
‘spinach.’

   If we undo dream-displacement by
means of analysis, we obtain what seems to be completely
trustworthy information on two much-disputed problems concerning
dreams: as to their instigators and as to their connection with
waking life. There are dreams which immediately reveal their
derivation from events of the day; there are others in which no
trace of any such derivation is to be discovered. If we seek the
help of analysis, we find that every dream without any possible
exception goes back to an impression of the past few days, or, it
is probably more correct to say, of the day immediately preceding
the dream, of the ‘dream-day.’ The impression which
plays the part of dream-instigator may be such an important one
that we feel no surprise at being concerned with it in the daytime,
and in that case we rightly speak of the dream as carrying on with
the significant interests of our waking life. As a rule, however,
if a connection is to be found in the content of the dream with any
impression of the previous day, that impression is so trivial,
insignificant and unmemorable, that it is only with difficulty that
we ourselves can recall it. And in such cases the content of the
dream itself, even if it is connected and intelligible, seems to be
concerned with the most indifferent trivialities, which would be
unworthy of our interest if we were awake. A good deal of the
contempt in which dreams are held is due to the preference thus
shown in their content for what is indifferent and trivial.

On Dreams

1072

   Analysis does away with the
misleading appearance upon which this derogatory judgement is
founded. If the content of a dream puts forward some indifferent
impression as being its instigator, analysis invariably brings to
light a significant experience, and one by which the dreamer has
good reason to be stirred. This experience has been replaced by the
indifferent one, with which it is connected by copious associative
links. Where the content of the dream treats of insignificant and
uninteresting ideational material, analysis uncovers the numerous
associative paths connecting these trivialities with things that
are of the highest psychical importance in the dreamer’s
estimation.
If what makes their way into the content of dreams
are impressions and material which are indifferent and trivial
rather than justifiably stirring and interesting, that is only the
effect of the process of displacement
. If we answer our
questions about dream-instigators and the connection between
dreaming and daily affairs on the basis of the new insight we have
gained from replacing the manifest by the latent content of dreams,
we arrive at these conclusions:
dreams are never concerned with
things with which we should not think it worth while to be
concerned during the day, and trivialities which do no affect us
during the day are unable to pursue us in our sleep
.

   What was the dream-instigator in
the specimen that we have chosen for analysis? It was the
definitely insignificant event of my friend giving me
a drive in
a cab free of cost
. The situation in the dream at the table
d’hôte contained an allusion to this insignificant
precipitating cause, for in my conversation I had compared the
taximeter cab with a table d’hôte. But I can also point
to the important experience which was represented by this trivial
one. A few days earlier I had paid out a considerable sum of money
on behalf of a member of my family of whom I am fond. No wonder,
said the dream-thoughts, if this person were to feel grateful to
me: love of that sort would not be ‘free of cost.’ Love
that is free of cost, however, stood in the forefront of the
dream-thoughts. The fact that not long before I had had several
cab-drives
with the relative in question, made it possible
for the cab-drive with my friend to remind me of my connections
with this other person.

On Dreams

1073

   The indifferent impression which
becomes a dream-instigator owing to associations of this kind is
subject to a further condition which does not apply to the true
source of the dream: it must always be a
recent
impression,
derived from the dream-day.

   I cannot leave the subject of
dream-displacement without drawing attention to a remarkable
process which occurs in the formation of dreams and in which
condensation and displacement
combine
to produce the result.
In considering condensation we have already seen the way in which
two ideas in the dream-thoughts which have something in common,
some point of contact, are replaced in the dream-content by a
composite idea, in which a relatively distinct nucleus represents
what they have in common, while indistinct subordinate details
correspond to the respects in which they differ from each other. If
displacement takes place in addition to condensation, what is
constructed is not a composite idea but an ‘intermediate
common entity’, which stands in a relation to the two
different elements similar to that in which the resultant in a
parallelogram of forces stands to its components. For instance, in
the content of one of my dreams there was a question of an
injection with
propyl
. To begin with, the analysis only led
me to an indifferent experience which had acted as
dream-instigator, and in which a part was played by
amyl
. I
was not yet able to justify the confusion between amyl and propyl .
In the group of ideas behind this same dream, however, there was
also a recollection of my first visit to Munich, where I had been
struck by the
Propylaea
. The details of the analysis made it
plausible to suppose that it was the influence of this second group
of ideas upon the first one that was responsible for the
displacement from amyl to propyl.
Propyl
is as it were an
intermediate idea between
amyl
and
Propylaea
, and
found its way into the content of the dream as a kind of
compromise
, by means of simultaneous condensation and
displacement.