Freud - Complete Works (135 page)

  
¹
Psychical
intensity or value or the
degree of interest of an idea is of course to be distinguished from
sensory
intensity or the intensity of the image
presented.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

779

   In order to solve this difficulty
we shall make use of another impression derived from our enquiry
into the overdetermination of the dream-content. Perhaps some of
those who have read that enquiry may already have formed an
independent conclusion that the overdetermination of the elements
of dreams is no very important discovery, since it is a
self-evident one. For in analysis we start out from the
dream-elements and note down all the associations which lead off
from them; so that there is nothing surprising in the fact that in
the thought-material arrived at in this way we come across these
same elements with peculiar frequency. I cannot accept this
objection; but I will myself put into words something that sounds
not unlike it. Among the thoughts that analysis brings to light are
many which are relatively remote from the kernel of the dream and
which look like artificial interpolations made for some particular
purpose. That purpose is easy to divine. It is precisely
they
that constitute a connection, often a forced and
far-fetched one, between the dream-content and the dream thoughts;
and if these elements were weeded out of the analysis the result
would often be that the component parts of the dream-content would
be left not only without overdetermination but without any
satisfactory determination at all. We shall be led to conclude that
the multiple determination which decides what shall be included in
a dream is not always a primary factor in dream-construction but is
often the secondary product of a psychical force which is still
unknown to us. Nevertheless multiple determination must be of
importance in choosing what particular elements shall enter a
dream, since we can see that a considerable expenditure of effort
is used to bring it about in cases where it does not arise from the
dream-material unassisted.

   It thus seems plausible to
suppose that in the dream-work a psychical force is operating which
on the one hand strips the elements which have a high psychical
value of their intensity, and on the other hand,
by means of
overdetermination
, creates from elements of low psychical value
new values, which afterwards find their way into the dream-content.
If that is so, a
transference and displacement of psychical
intensities
occurs in the process of dream-formation, and it is
as a result of these that the difference between the text of the
dream-content and that of the dream thoughts comes about. The
process which we are here presuming is nothing less than the
essential portion of the dream work; and it deserves to be
described as ‘dream-displacement.’ Dream-displacement
and dream-condensation are the two governing factors to whose
activity we may in essence ascribe the form assumed by dreams.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

780

   Nor do I think we shall have any
difficulty in recognizing the psychical force which manifests
itself in the facts of dream-displacement. The consequence of the
displacement is that the dream-content no longer resembles the core
of the dream-thoughts and that the dream gives no more than a
distortion of the dream-wish which exists in the unconscious. But
we are already familiar with dream-distortion. We traced it back to
the censorship which is exercised by one psychical agency in the
mind over another. Dream-displacement is one of the chief methods
by which that distortion is achieved.
Is fecit cui profuit
.
We may assume, then, that dream-displacement comes about through
the influence of the same censorship - that is, the censorship of
endopsychic defence.¹

   The question of the interplay of
these factors - of displacement, condensation and overdetermination
- in the construction of dreams, and the question which is a
dominant factor and which a subordinate one - all of this we shall
leave aside for later investigation. But we can state provisionally
a second condition which must be satisfied by those elements of the
dream-thoughts which make their way into the dream:
they must
escape the censorship imposed by resistance
. And henceforward
in interpreting dreams we shall take dream-displacement into
account as an undeniable fact.

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1909:] Since I may
say that the kernel of my theory of dreams lies in my derivation of
dream-distortion from the censorship, I will here insert the last
part of a story from
Phantasien ein Realisten
by
‘Lynkeus’ (Vienna, 2nd edition, 1900), in which I have
found this principal feature of my theory once more
expounded.

  
‘About a man who has the remarkable
attribute of never dreaming nonsense . . .

  
‘"This splendid gift of yours, for dreaming as though
you were waking, is a consequence of your virtue, of your kindness,
your sense of justice, and your love of truth; it is the moral
serenity of your nature which makes me understand all about
you."

  
‘"But when I think the matter over properly,"
replied the other, "I almost believe that everyone is made
like me, and that no one at all ever dreams nonsense. Any dream
which one can remember clearly enough to describe it afterwards -
any dream, that is to say, which is not a fever-dream - must
always
make sense, and it cannot possibly be otherwise. For
things that were mutually contradictory could not group themselves
into a single whole. The fact that time and space are often thrown
into confusion does not affect the true content of the dream, since
no doubt neither of them are of significance for its real essence.
We often do the same thing in waking life. Only think of fairy
tales and of the many daring products of the imagination, which are
full of meaning and of which only a man without intelligence could
say: ‘This is nonsense, for it’s
impossible.’"

  
‘"If only one always knew how to interpret dreams in the
right way, as you have just done with mine!" said his
friend.

  
‘"That is certainly no easy task; but with a little
attention on the part of the dreamer himself it should no doubt
always succeed. -You ask why it is that for the most part it does
not
succeed? In you other people there seems always to be
something that lies concealed in your dreams, something unchaste in
a special and higher sense, a certain secret quality in your being
which it is hard to follow. And that is why your dreams so often
seem to be without meaning or even to be nonsense. But in the
deepest sense this is not in the least so; indeed, it cannot be so
at all - for it is always the same man, whether he is awake or
dreaming."'

The Interpretation Of Dreams

781

(B)

THE MEANS OF REPRESENTATION IN
DREAMS

   In the process of transforming
the latent thoughts into the manifest content of a dream we have
found two factors at work: dream-condensation and
dream-displacement. As we continue our investigation we shall, in
addition to these, come across two further determinants which
exercise an undoubted influence on the choice of the material which
is to find access to the dream.

   But first, even at the risk of
appearing to bring our progress to a halt, I should like to take a
preliminary glance at the processes involved in carrying out the
interpretation of a dream. I cannot disguise from myself that the
easiest way of making those processes clear and of defending their
trustworthiness against criticism would be to take some particular
dream as a sample, go through its interpretation (just as I have
done with the dream of Irma’s injection in my second
chapter), and then collect the dream-thoughts which I have
discovered and so on to reconstruct from them the process by which
the dream was formed - in other words, to complete a dream-analysis
by a dream-synthesis. I have in fact carried out that task for my
own instruction on several specimens; but I cannot reproduce them
here, since I am forbidden to do so for reasons connected with the
nature of the psychical material involved - reasons which are of
many kinds and which will be accepted as valid by any reasonable
person. Such considerations interfered less in the
analysis
of dreams, since an analysis could be incomplete and nevertheless
retain its value, even though it penetrated only a small way into
the texture of the dream. But in the case of the
synthesis
of a dream I do not see how it can be convincing unless it is
complete. I could only give a complete synthesis of dreams dreamt
by people unknown to the reading public. Since, however, this
condition is fulfilled only by my patients, who are neurotics, I
must postpone this part of my exposition of the subject till I am
able - in another volume - to carry the psychological elucidation
of neuroses to a point at which it can make contact with our
present topic.¹

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1909:] Since writing
the above words, I have published a complete analysis and synthesis
of two dreams in my ‘Fragment of the Analysis of a Case of
Hysteria’. [
Added
1914:] Otto Rank’s analysis,
‘Ein Traum, der sich selbst deutet’, deserves mention
as the most complete interpretation that has been published of a
dream of considerable length.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

782

   My attempts at building up dreams
by synthesis from the dream-thoughts have taught me that the
material which emerges in the course of interpretation is not all
of the same value. One part of it is made up of the essential
dream-thoughts - those, that is, which completely replace the
dream, and which, if there were no censorship of dreams, would be
sufficient in themselves to replace it. The other part of the
material is usually to be regarded as of less importance. Nor is it
possible to support the view that all the thoughts of this second
kind had a share in the formation of the dream. On the contrary,
there may be associations among them which relate to events that
occurred
after
the dream, between the times of dreaming and
interpreting. This part of the material includes all the connecting
paths that led from the manifest dream-content to the latent
dream-thoughts, as well as the intermediate and linking
associations by means of which, in the course of the process of
interpretation, we came to discover these connecting paths.

   We are here interested only in
the essential dream-thoughts. These usually emerge as a complex of
thoughts and memories of the of the most intricate possible
structure, with all the attributes of the trains of thought
familiar to us in waking life. They are not infrequently trains of
thought starting out from more than one centre, though having
points of contact. Each train of thought is almost invariably
accompanied by its contradictory counterpart, linked with it by
antithetical association.

   The different portions of this
complicated structure stand, of course, in the most manifold
logical relations to one another. They can represent foreground and
background, digressions and illustrations, conditions, chains of
evidence and counter-arguments. When the whole mass of these
dream-thoughts is brought under the pressure of the dream-work, and
its elements are turned about, broken into fragments and jammed
together - almost like pack-ice - the question arises of what
happens to the logical connections which have hitherto formed its
framework. What representation do dreams provide for
‘if’, ‘because’, ‘just as’,
‘although’, ‘either-or’, and all the other
conjunctions without which we cannot understand sentences or
speeches?

   In the first resort our answer
must be that dreams have no means at their disposal for
representing these logical relations between the dream-thoughts.
For the most part dreams disregard all these conjunctions, and it
is only the substantive content of the dream-thoughts that they
take over and manipulate. The restoration of the connections which
the dream-work has destroyed is a task which has to be performed by
the interpretative process.

   The incapacity of dreams to
express these things must lie in the nature of the psychical
material out of which dreams are made. The plastic arts of painting
and sculpture labour, indeed, under a similar limitation as
compared with poetry, which can make use of speech; and here once
again the reason for their incapacity lies in the nature of the
material which these two forms of art manipulate in their effort to
express something. Before painting became acquainted with the laws
of expression by which it is governed, it made attempts to get over
this handicap. In ancient paintings small labels were hung from the
mouths of the persons represented, containing in written characters
the speeches which the artist despaired of representing
pictorially.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

783

   At this point an objection may
perhaps be raised in dispute of the idea that dreams are unable to
represent logical relations. For there are dreams in which the most
complicated intellectual operations take place, statements are
contradicted or confirmed, ridiculed or compared, just as they are
in waking thought. But here again appearances are deceitful. If we
go into the interpretation of dreams such as these, we find that
the whole of this is
part of the material of the dream-thoughts
and is not a representation of intellectual work performed during
the dream itself
. What is reproduced by the ostensible thinking
in the dream is the
subject-matter
of the dream-thoughts and
not the
mutual relations between them
, the assertion of
which constitutes thinking. I shall bring forward some instances of
this. But the easiest point to establish in this connection is that
all spoken sentences which occur in dreams and are specifically
described as such are unmodified or slightly modified reproductions
of speeches which are also to be found among the recollections in
the material of the dream-thoughts. A speech of this kind is often
no more than an allusion to some event included among the
dream-thoughts, and the meaning of the dream may be a totally
different one.