Freud - Complete Works (148 page)

   The information provided by
psycho-analyses forces me to conclude that these dreams, too,
reproduce impressions of childhood; they relate, that is, to games
involving movement, which are extraordinarily attractive to
children. There cannot be a single uncle who has not shown a child
how to fly by rushing across the room with him in his outstretched
arms, or who has not played at letting him fall by riding him on
his knee and then suddenly stretching out his leg, or by holding
him up high and then suddenly pretending to drop him. Children are
delighted by such experiences and never tire of asking to have them
repeated, especially if there is something about them that causes a
little fright or giddiness. In after years they repeat these
experiences in dreams; but in the dreams they leave out the hands
which held them up, so that they float or fall unsupported. The
delight taken by young children in games of this kind (as well as
in swings and see-saws) is well known; when they come to see
acrobatic feats in a circus their memory of such games is revived.
Hysterical attacks in boys sometimes consist merely in
reproductions of feats of this kind, carried out with great skill.
It not uncommonly happens that these games of movement, though
innocent in themselves, give rise to sexual feelings. Childish
romping [‘
Hetzen
’], if I may use a word which
commonly describes all such activities, is what is being repeated
in dreams of flying, falling, giddiness and so on; while the
pleasurable feelings attached to these experiences are transformed
into anxiety. But, often enough, as every mother knows, romping
among children actually ends in squabbling and tears.

   Thus I have good grounds for
rejecting the theory that what provokes dreams of flying and
falling is the state of our tactile feelings during sleep or
sensations of the movement of our lungs, and so on. In my view
these sensations are themselves reproduced as part of the memory to
which the dream goes back: that is to say, they are part of the
content
of the dream and not its source.¹

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1930:] These remarks
on dreams of movement are repeated here, since the present context
requires them. See above,
p. 747 f.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

851

   This material, then, consisting
of sensations of movement of similar kinds and derived from the
same source, is used to represent dream-thoughts of every possible
sort. Dreams of flying or floating in the air (as a rule,
pleasurably toned) require the most various interpretations; with
some people these interpretations have to be of an individual
character, whereas with others they may even be of a typical kind.
One of my women patients used very often to dream that she was
floating at a certain height over the street without touching the
ground. She was very short, and she dreaded the contamination
involved in contact with other people. Her floating dream fulfilled
her two wishes, by raising her feet from the ground and lifting her
head into a higher stratum of air. In other women I have found that
flying dreams expressed a desire ‘to be like a bird’;
while other dreamers became angels during the night because they
had not been called angels during the day. The close connection of
flying with the idea of birds explains how it is that in men flying
dreams usually have a grossly sensual meaning; and we shall not be
surprised when we hear that some dreamer or other is very proud of
his powers of flight.

   Dr. Paul Federn (of Vienna ) has
put forward the attractive theory that a good number of these
flying dreams are dreams of erection; for the remarkable phenomenon
of erection, around which the human imagination has constantly
played, cannot fail to be impressive, involving as it does an
apparent suspension of the laws of gravity. (Cf. in this connection
the winged phalli of the ancients.)

   It is a remarkable fact that
Mourly Vold, a sober-minded investigator of dreams and one who is
disinclined to interpretation of any kind, also supports the erotic
interpretation of flying or floating dreams (Vold, 1910-12, 2,
791). He speaks of the erotic factor as ‘the most powerful
motive for floating dreams’, draws attention to the intense
feeling of vibration in the body that accompanies such dreams and
points to the frequency with which they are connected with
erections or emissions.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

852

   Dreams of falling, on the other
hand, are more often characterized by anxiety. Their interpretation
offers no difficulty in the case of women, who almost always accept
the symbolic use of falling as a way of describing a surrender to
an erotic temptation. Nor have we yet exhausted the infantile
sources of dreams of falling. Almost every child has fallen down at
one time or other and afterwards been picked up and petted; or if
he has fallen out of his cot at night, has been taken into bed with
his mother or nurse.

   People who have frequent dreams
of swimming and who feel great joy in cleaving their way through
the waves, and so on, have as a rule been bed-wetters and are
repeating in their dreams a pleasure which they have long learnt to
forgo. We shall learn presently from more than one example what it
is that dreams of swimming are most easily used to represent.

   The interpretation of dreams of
fire justifies the nursery law which forbids a child to ‘play
with fire’ - so that he shall not wet his bed at night. For
in their case, too, there is an underlying recollection of the
enuresis of childhood. In my ‘Fragment of an Analysis of a
Case of Hysteria’, I have given a complete analysis and
synthesis of a fire dream of this kind in connection with the
dreamer’s case history, and I have shown what impulses of
adult years this infantile material can be used to represent.

   It would be possible to mention a
whole number of other ‘typical’ dreams if we take the
term to mean that the same manifest dream-content is frequently to
be found in the dreams of different dreamers. For instance we might
mention dreams of passing though narrow streets or of walking
through whole suites of rooms, and dreams of burglars - against
whom, incidentally, nervous people take precautions
before
they go to sleep; dreams of being pursued by wild animals (or by
bulls or horses) or of being threatened with knives, daggers or
lances - these last two classes being characteristic of the
manifest content of the dreams of people who suffer from anxiety -
and many more. An investigation specially devoted to this material
would thoroughly repay the labour involved. But instead of this I
have two observations to make, though these do not apply
exclusively to typical dreams.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

853

   The more one is concerned with
the solution of dreams, the more one is driven to recognize that
the majority of the dreams of adults deal with sexual material and
give expression to erotic wishes. A judgement on this point can be
formed only by those who really analyse dreams, that is to say, who
make their way through their manifest content to the latent
dream-thoughts, and never by those who are satisfied with making a
note of the manifest content alone (like Näcke, for instance,
in his writings on sexual dreams). Let me say at once that this
fact is not in the least surprising but is in complete harmony with
the principles of my explanation of dreams. No other instinct has
been subjected since childhood to so much suppression as the sexual
instinct with its numerous components (cf. my
Three Essays on
the Theory of Sexuality
, 1905
d
); from no other instinct
are so many and such powerful unconscious wishes left over, ready
to produce dreams in a state of sleep. In interpreting dreams we
should never forget the significance of sexual complexes, though we
should also, of course, avoid the exaggeration of attributing
exclusive importance to them.

   We can assert of many dreams, if
they are carefully interpreted, that they are bisexual, since they
unquestionably admit of an ‘over-interpretation’ in
which the dreamer’s homosexual impulses are realized -
impulses, that is, which are contrary to his normal sexual
activities. To maintain, however, as do Stekel (1911) and Adler
(1910, etc.), that
all
dreams are to be interpreted
bisexually appears to me to be a generalization which is equally
undemonstrable and unplausible and which I am not prepared to
support. In particular, I cannot dismiss the obvious fact that
there are numerous dreams which satisfy needs other than those
which are erotic in the widest sense of the word: dreams of hunger
and thirst, dreams of convenience, etc. So, too, such statements as
that ‘the spectre of death is to be found behind every
dream’ (Stekel), or that ‘every dream shows an advance
from the feminine to the masculine line’ (Adler), appear to
me to go far beyond anything that can be legitimately maintained in
dream-interpretation.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

854

   The assertion that all dreams
require a sexual interpretation, against which critics rage so
incessantly, occurs nowhere in my
Interpretation of Dreams
.
It is not to be found in any of the numerous editions of this book
and is in obvious contradiction to other views expressed in it.

   I have already shown elsewhere
that strikingly innocent dreams may embody crudely erotic wishes,
and I could confirm this by many new instances. But it is also true
that many dreams which appear to be
indifferent
and which
one would not regard as in any respect peculiar lead back on
analysis to wishful impulses which are unmistakably sexual and
often of an unexpected sort. Who, for instance, would have
suspected the presence of a sexual wish in the following dream
before it had been interpreted? The dreamer gave this account of
it:
Standing back a little behind two stately palaces was a
little house with closed doors. My wife led me along the piece of
street up to the little house and pushed the door open; I then
slipped quickly and easily into the inside of a court which rose in
an incline
. Anyone, however, who has had a little experience in
translating dreams will at once reflect that penetrating into
narrow spaces and opening closed doors are among the commonest
sexual symbols, and will easily perceive in this dream a
representation of an attempt at
coitus a tergo
(between the
two stately buttocks of the female body). The narrow passage rising
in an incline stood, of course, for the vagina. The assistance
attributed by the dreamer to his wife forces us to conclude that in
reality it was only consideration for her that restrained the
dreamer from making attempts of this kind. It turned out that on
the dream-day a girl had come to live in the dreamer’s
household who had attracted him and had given him the impression
that she would raise no great objections to an approach of that
kind. The little house between the two palaces was a reminiscence
of the Hradshin in Prague and was a further reference to the same
girl, who came from that place.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

855

   When I insist to one of my
patients on the frequency of Oedipus dreams, in which the dreamer
has sexual intercourse with his own mother, he often replies:
‘I have no recollection of having had any such
dream.’  Immediately afterwards, however, a memory will
emerge of some other inconspicuous and indifferent dream, which the
patient has dreamt repeatedly. Analysis then shows that this is in
fact a dream with the same content - once more an Oedipus dream. I
can say with certainty that
disguised
dreams of sexual
intercourse with the dreamer’s mother are many times more
frequent than straightforward ones.¹

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1911:] I have
published elsewhere a typical example of a disguised Oedipus dream
of this kind. [Reprinted below.] Another example, with a detailed
analysis, has been published by Otto Rank (1911
a
). -
[
Added
1914:] For some other disguised Oedipus dreams, in
which eye-symbolism is prominent, see Rank (1913). Other papers on
eye-dreams and eye-symbolism, by Eder, Ferenczi and Reitler will be
found in the same place. The blinding in the legend of Oedipus, as
well as elsewhere, stands for castration. - [
Added
1911:]
Incidentally, the symbolic interpretation of undisguised Oedipus
dreams was not unknown to the ancients. Rank (1910, 534) writes:
‘Thus Julius Caesar is reported to have had a dream of sexual
intercourse with his mother which was explained by the
dream-interpreters as a favourable augury for his taking possession
of the earth (Mother Earth). The oracle given to the Tarquins is
equally well known, which prophesied that the conquest of Rome
would fall to that one of them who should first kiss his mother
("
osculum matri tulerit
"). This was interpreted by
Brutus as referring to Mother Earth. ("
Terram osculo
contigit, scilicet quod ea communis mater omnium mortalium
eeset
" Livy, I, 56.)' - [
Added
1914:] Compare
in this connection the dream of Hippias reported by Herodotus (VI,
107)): ‘As for the Persians, they were guided to Marathon by
Hippias son of Pisistratus. Hippias in the past night had seen a
vision in his sleep wherein he thought that he lay with his own
mother; he interpreted this dream to signify that he should return
to Athens and recover his power, and so die an old man in his own
mother-country.’ - [
Added
1911:] These myths and
interpretations reveal a true psychological insight. I have found
that people who know that they are preferred or favoured by the
mother give evidence in their lives of a peculiar self-reliance and
an unshakeable optimism which often seem like heroic attributes and
bring actual success to their possesors.