Freud - Complete Works (133 page)

The Interpretation Of Dreams

767

   Another interesting example of
condensation in this dream was the mention in it of
‘propyls’ . What was contained in the dream-thoughts
was not ‘propyls’ but ‘amyls.’ It
might be supposed that a single displacement had taken place at
this point in the construction of the dream. This was indeed the
case. But the displacement served the purposes of condensation, as
is proved by the following addition to the analysis of the dream.
When I allowed my attention to dwell for a moment longer on the
word ‘propyls’, it occurred to me that it sounded like
‘Propylaea’. But there are Propylaea not only in Athens
but in Munich. A year before the dream I had gone to Munich to
visit a friend who was seriously ill at the time - the same friend
who was unmistakably alluded to in the dream by the word
‘trimethylamin’ which occurred immediately after
‘propyls.’

   I shall pass over the striking
way in which here, as elsewhere in dream-analyses, associations of
the most various inherent importance are used for laying down
thought-connections as though they were of equal weight, and shall
yield to the temptation to give, as it were, a plastic picture of
the process by which the amyls in the dream-thoughts were replaced
by propyls in the dream-content.

   On the one hand we see the group
of ideas attached to my friend Otto, who did not understand me, who
sided against me, and who made me a present of liqueur with an
aroma of amyl. On the other hand we see - linked to the former
group by its very contrast - the group of ideas attached to my
friend in Berlin, who
did
understand me, who would take my
side, and to whom I owed so much valuable information, dealing,
amongst other things, with the chemistry of the sexual
processes.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

768

   The recent exciting causes - the
actual instigators of the dream - determined what was to attract my
attention in the ‘Otto’ group; the amyl was among these
selected elements, which were predestined to form part of the
dream-content. The copious ‘ Wilhelm’ group was stirred
up precisely through being in contrast to ‘Otto’, and
those elements in it were emphasized which echoed those which were
already stirred up in ‘Otto’. All though the dream,
indeed, I kept on turning from someone who annoyed me to someone
else who could be agreeably contrasted with him; point by point, I
called up a friend against an opponent. Thus the amyl in the
‘Otto’ group produced memories from the field of
chemistry in the other group; in this manner the trimethylamin,
which was supported from several directions, found its way into the
dream-content. ‘Amyls’ itself might have entered the
dream-content unmodified; but it came under the influence of the
‘Wilhelm’ group. For the whole range of memories
covered by that name was searched through in order to find some
element which could provide a two-sided determination for
‘amyls.’ ‘Propyls’  was closely
associated with ‘amyls’, and Munich from the
‘Wilhelm’ group with its ‘propylaea’ came
half-way to meet it. The two groups of ideas converged in
‘propyls-propylaea’; and, as though by an act of
compromise, this intermediate element was what found its way into
the dream-content. Here an intermediate common entity had been
constructed which admitted of multiple determination. It is
obvious, therefore, that multiple determination must make it easier
for an element to force its way into the dream-content. In order to
construct an intermediate link of this kind, attention is without
hesitation displaced from what is actually intended on to some
neighbouring association.

   Our study of the dream of
Irma’s injection has already enabled us to gain some insight
into the processes of condensation during the formation of dreams.
We have been able to observe certain of their details, such as how
preference is given to elements that occur several times over in
the dream-thoughts, how new unities are formed (in the shape of
collective figures and composite structures), and how intermediate
common entities are constructed. The further questions of the
purpose
of condensation and of the factors which tend to
produce it will not be raised till we come to consider the whole
question of the psychical processes at work in the formation of
dreams. We will be content for the present with recognizing the
fact that dream-condensation is a notable characteristic of the
relation between dream-thoughts and dream-content.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

769

   The work of condensation in
dreams is seen at its clearest when it handles words and names. It
is true in general that words are frequently treated in dreams as
though they were things, and for that reason they are apt to be
combined in just the same way as are presentations of things.
Dreams of this sort offer the most amusing and curious
neologisms.

I

   On one occasion a medical
colleague had sent me a paper he had written, in which the
importance of a recent physiological discovery was, in my opinion,
overestimated, and in which, above all, the subject was treated in
too emotional a manner. The next night I dreamt a sentence which
clearly referred to this paper: ‘
Its written in a
positively norekdal style
.’ The analysis of the word
caused me some difficulty at first. There could be no doubt that it
was a parody of the superlatives ‘
kolossal
’ and
‘
pyramidal
’; but its origin was not so easy to
guess. At last I saw that the monstrosity was composed of the two
names ‘Nora’ and ‘Ekdal’ - characters in
two well-known plays of Ibsen’s. Some time before, I had read
a newspaper article on Ibsen by the same author whose latest work I
was criticizing in the dream.

II

   One of my women patients told me
a short dream which ended in a meaningless verbal compound. She
dreamt she was with her husband at a peasant festivity and said:
‘
This will end in a general
"Maistollmütz."
' In the dream she had a
vague feeling that it was some kind of pudding made with maize - a
sort of polenta. Analysis divided the word into
‘
Mais
’ [‘maize’],
‘
toll
’ [‘mad’],
‘
mannstoll
’ [‘nymphomaniac’ -
literally ‘mad for men’] and
Olmütz
[a town
in Moravia]. All these fragments were found to be remnants of a
conversation she had had at table with her relatives. The following
words lay behind ‘
Mais
’ (in addition to a
reference to the recently opened Jubilee Exhibition):
‘
Meissen
’ (a Meissen porcelain figure
representing a bird); ‘
Miss
’ (her
relatives’ English governess had just gone to
Olmütz
); and ‘
mies
’ (a Jewish slang
term, used jokingly to mean ‘disgusting’). A long chain
of thoughts and associations led off from each syllable of this
verbal hotch potch.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

770

III

   A young man, whose door-bell had
been rung late one night by an acquaintance who wanted to leave a
visiting-card on him, had a dream that night:
A man had been
working till late in the evening to put his house-telephone in
order. After he had gone, it kept on ringing - not continuously,
but with detached rings. His servant fetched the man back, and the
latter remarked: ‘It’s a funny thing that even people
who are "tutelrein" as a rule are quite unable to deal
with a thing like this
.’

   It will be seen that the
indifferent exciting cause of the dream only covers one element of
it. That episode only obtained any importance from the fact that
the dreamer put it in the same series as an earlier experience
which, though equally indifferent in itself, was given a
substitutive meaning by his imagination. When he was a boy, living
with his father, he had upset a glass of water over the floor while
he was half-asleep. The flex of the house-telephone had been soaked
through and its
continuous ringing
had disturbed his
father’s sleep. Since the continuous ringing corresponded to
getting wet, the ‘
detached rings
’ were used to
represent drops falling. The word ‘
tutelrein
’
could be analysed in three directions, and led in that way to three
of the subjects represented in the dream-thoughts.
‘
Tutel
’ is a legal term for
‘guardianship’ [‘tutelage’].
‘
Tutel
’ (or possibly
‘
Tuttel
’) is also a vulgar term for a
woman’s breast. The remaining portion of the word,
‘
rein
’ [‘clean’], combined with the
first part of ‘
Zimmertelegraph
’
[‘house-telephone’], forms
‘
zimmerrein
’ [‘house-trained’] -
which is closely connected with making the floor wet, and, in
addition, sounded very much like the name of a member of the
dreamer’s family.¹

  
¹
In waking life this same kind of analysis
and synthesis of syllables - a syllabic chemistry, in fact - plays
a part in a great number of jokes: ‘What is the cheapest way
of obtaining silver? You go down an avenue of silver poplars
[
Pappeln
, which means both "poplars" and
"babbling"] and call for silence. The babbling then
ceases and the silver is released.’ The first reader and
critic of this book - and his successors are likely to follow his
example - protested that ‘the dreamer seems to be too
ingenious and amusing.’ This is quite true so long as it
refers only to the dreamer; it would only be an objection if it
were to be extended to the dream-interpreter. In waking reality I
have little claim to be regarded as a wit. If my dreams seem
amusing, that is not on my account, but on account of the peculiar
psychological conditions under which dreams are constructed; and
the fact is intimately connected with the theory of jokes and the
comic. Dreams become ingenious and amusing because the direct and
easiest pathway to the expression of their thoughts is barred: they
are forced into being so. The reader can convince himself that my
patients’ dreams seem at least as full of jokes and puns as
my own, or even fuller. - [
Added
1909:] Nevertheless this
objection led me to compare the technique of jokes with the
dream-work; and the results are to be found in the book which I
published on Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious
(1905
c
).

The Interpretation Of Dreams

771

IV

   In a confused dream of my own of
some length, whose central point seemed to be a sea voyage, it
appeared that the next stopping place was called
‘
Hearsing
’ and the next after that
‘
Fliess
.’ This last word was the name of my
friend, who has often been the goal of my travels.
‘Hearsing’ was a compound. One part of it was derived
from the names of places on the suburban railway near Vienna, which
so often end in ‘ing’: Hietzing, Liesing, Mödling
(Medelitz, ‘
meae deliciae
’, was its old name -
that is ‘
meine Freud
’ [‘my
delight’]). The other part was derived from the English word
‘hearsay.’ This suggested slander and established the
dream’s connection with its indifferent instigator of the
previous day: a poem in the periodical
Fliegende
Blätter
about a slanderous dwarf called ‘Sagter
Hatergesagt’ [‘He-says Says-he’]. If the syllable
‘ing’ were to be added to the name ‘Fliess’
we should get ‘Vlissingen’, which was in fact the
stopping-place on the sea voyage made by my brother whenever he
visited us from England. But the English name for Vlissingen is
‘Flushing’, which in English means
‘blushing’ and reminded me of the patients I have
treated for ereutophobia, and also of a recent paper on that
neurosis by Bechterew which had caused me some annoyance.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

772

V

   On another occasion I had a dream
which consisted of two separate pieces. The first piece was the
word ‘
Autodidasker
’, which I recalled vividly.
The second piece was an exact reproduction of a short and harmless
phantasy which I had produced some days before. This phantasy was
to the effect that when I next saw Professor N. I must say to him:
‘The patient about whose condition I consulted you recently
is in fact only suffering from a neurosis, just as you
suspected.’ Thus the neologism ‘Autodidasker’
must satisfy two conditions: firstly, it must bear or represent a
composite meaning; and secondly, that meaning must be solidly
related to the intention I had reproduced from waking life of
making amends to Professor N.

   The word
‘Autodidasker’ could easily be analysed into
‘Autor’ [author], ‘Autodidakt’
[self-taught] and ‘Lasker’, with which I also
associated the name of Lassalle. The first of these words led to
the precipitating cause of the dream - this time a significant one.
I had given my wife several volumes by a well-known writer who was
a friend of my brother’s, and who, as I have learnt, was a
native of my own birthplace: J. J. David. One evening she had told
me of the deep impression that had been made on her by the tragic
story in one of David’s books of how a man of talent went to
the bad; and our conversation had turned to a discussion of the
gifts of which we saw signs in our own children. Under the impact
of what she had been reading, my wife expressed concern about the
children, and I consoled her with the remark that those were the
very dangers which could be kept at bay by a good upbringing. My
train of thought was carried further during the night; I took up my
wife’s concern and wove all kinds of other things into it. A
remark made by the author to my brother on the subject of marriage
showed my thoughts a by-path along which they might come to be
represented in the dream. This path led to Breslau, where a lady
with whom we were very friendly had gone to be married and settle
down. The concern I felt over the danger of coming to grief over a
woman - for that was the kernel of my dream-thoughts - found an
example in Breslau in the cases of Lasker and Lassalle which made
it possible to give a simultaneous picture of the two ways in which
this fatal influence can be exercised. ‘
Cherchez la
femme
’, the phrase in which these thoughts could be
summarized, led me, taken in another sense, to my still unmarried
brother, whose name is Alexander. I now perceived that
‘Alex’, the shortened form of the name by which we call
him, has almost the same sound as an anagram of
‘Lasker’, and that this factor must have had a share in
leading my thoughts along the by-path by way of Breslau.