Freud - Complete Works (151 page)

   (12) The following examples are
taken from a paper by V. Tausk (1914) on the use of clothes and
colours in dreaming.

   (
a
) A. dreamt of
seeing a
former governess of his in a dress of black lustre
[‘
Lüster
’]
which fitted very tight
across her buttocks
. - This was explained as meaning that the
governess was lustful [‘
lüstern
’].

   (
b
) C. dreamt of
seeing
a girl on the ----Road, who was bathed in white light and was
wearing a white blouse
. - The dreamer had had intimate
relations with a Miss White for the first time on this road.

   (
c
) Frau D. dreamt of
seeing the eighty-year-old Viennese actor Blasel lying on a sofa
in full armour
[‘
in voller Rüstung
’].
He began jumping over tables and chairs, drew a dagger, looked
at himself in the looking-glass and brandished the dagger in the
air as though he was fighting an imaginary enemy
. -
Interpretation: The dreamer suffered from a long-standing affection
of the bladder [‘
Blase
’]. She lay on a sofa for
her analysis; when she looked at herself in a looking-glass, she
thought privately that in spite of her age and illness she still
looked hale and hearty [‘
rüsting
’].

The Interpretation Of Dreams

867

   (13)
A ‘GREAT ACHIEVEMENT’ IN A
DREAM
. - A man dreamt that
he was a pregnant woman lying
in bed. He found the situation very disagreeable. He called out:
‘I’d rather be
. . .’ (during the analysis,
after calling to mind a nurse, he completed the sentence with the
words ‘breaking stones’).
Behind the bed there was
hanging a map, the bottom edge of which was kept stretched by a
strip of wood. He tore the strip of wood down by catching hold of
its two ends. It did not break across but split into two halves
lengthways. This action relieved him and at the same time helped on
delivery
.

   Without any assistance he
interpreted tearing down the strip [‘
Leiste
’] as
a great achievement [‘
Leistung
’]. He was
escaping from his uncomfortable situation (in the treatment) by
tearing himself out of his feminine attitude . . . .
The absurd detail of the strip of wood not simply breaking but
splitting lengthways was explained thus: the dreamer recalled that
this combination of doubling and destroying was an allusion to
castration. Dreams very often represent castration by the presence
of two penis symbols as the defiant expression of an antithetical
wish. Incidentally, the ‘
Leiste
’
[‘groin’] is a part of the body in the neighbourhood of
the genitals. The dreamer summed up the interpretation of the dream
as meaning that he had got the better of the threat of castration
which had led to his adopting a feminine attitude.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

868

   (14) In an analysis which I was
conducting in French a dream came up for interpretation in which I
appeared as an elephant. I naturally asked the dreamer why I was
represented in that form. ‘
Vous me trompez
’
[‘you are deceiving me’] was his reply
(‘
trompe
’ = ‘trunk’).

   The dream-work can often succeed
in representing very refractory material, such as proper names, by
a far-fetched use of out-of-the-way associations. In one of my
dreams
old Brücke had set me the task of making a
dissection; . . . I fished something out that looked
like a piece of crumpled silver-paper
. (I shall return to this
dream later.) The association to this (at which I arrived with some
difficulty) was ‘stanniol.’ I then perceived that I was
thinking of the name of Stannius, the author of a dissertation on
the nervous system of fish, which I had greatly admired in my
youth. The first scientific task which my teacher set me was in
fact concerned with the nervous system of a fish, Ammocoetes. It
was clearly impossible to make use of the name of this fish in a
picture puzzle.

   At this point I cannot resist
recording a very peculiar dream, which also deserves to be noticed
as having been dreamt by a child, and which can easily be explained
analytically. ‘I remember having often dreamt when I was a
child’, said a lady, ‘
that God wore a paper
cocked-hat on his head.
I used very often to have a hat of that
sort put on my head at meals, to prevent my being able to look at
the other children’s plates, to see how big their helpings
were. As I had heard that God was omniscient, the meaning of the
dream was that I knew everything - even in spite of the hat that
had been put on my head.’

The Interpretation Of Dreams

869

   The nature of the dream-work and
the way in which it plays about with its material, the
dream-thoughts, are instructively shown when we come to consider
numbers and calculations that occur in dreams. Moreover, numbers in
dreams are regarded superstitiously as being especially significant
in regard to the future. I shall therefore select a few instances
of this kind from my collection.

I

   Extract from a dream dreamt by a
lady shortly before her treatment came to an end:
She was going
to pay for something. Her daughter took 3 florins and 65 kreuzers
from her (the mother’s) purse. The dreamer said to her:
‘What are you doing? It only costs 21 kreuzers
.’
Owing to my knowledge of the dreamer’s circumstances, this
bit of dream was intelligible to me without any further explanation
on her part. The lady came from abroad and her daughter was at
school in Vienna. She was in a position to carry on her treatment
with me as long as her daughter remained in Vienna. The
girl’s school year was due to end in three weeks and this
also meant the end of the lady’s treatment. The day before
the dream, the headmistress had asked her whether she would not
consider leaving her daughter at school for another year. From this
suggestion she had evidently gone on to reflect that in that case
she might also continue her treatment. This was what the dream
referred to. One year is equal to 365 days. The three weeks which
remained both of the school-year and of the treatment were
equivalent to 21 days (though the hours of treatment would be less
than this). The numbers, which in the dream-thoughts referred to
periods of time, were attached in the dream itself to sums of money
- not but what there was a deeper meaning involved, for ‘time
is money.’ 365 kreuzers only amount to 3 florins and 65
kreuzers; and the smallness of the sums that occurred in the dream
was obviously the result of wish-fulfilment. The dreamer’s
wish reduced the cost both of the treatment and of the year’s
school-fees.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

870

II

   The numbers which occurred in
another dream involved more complicated circumstances. A lady who,
though she was still young, had been married for a number of years,
received news that an acquaintance of hers, Elise L., who was
almost exactly her contemporary, had just become engaged. Thereupon
she had the following dream.
She was at the theatre with her
husband. One side of the stalls was completely empty. Her husband
told her that Elise L. and her fiancé had wanted to go too;
but had only been able to get bad seats - three for 1 florin 50
kreuzers - and of course they could not take those. She thought it
would not really have done any harm if they had
.

   What was the origin of the 1
florin 50 kreuzers? It came from what was in fact an indifferent
event of the previous day. Her sister-in-law had been given a
present of 150 florins by her husband and had been in a hurry to
get rid of them by buying a piece of jewellery. It is to be noticed
that 150 florins is a
hundred
times as much as 1 florin 50
kreuzers. Where did the
three
come from which was the number
of the theatre tickets? The only connection here was that her
newly-engaged friend was the same number of months -
three
-
her junior. The solution of the dream was arrived at with the
discovery of the meaning of the empty stalls. They were an
unmodified allusion to a small incident which had given her husband
a good excuse for teasing her. She had planned to go to one of the
plays that had been announced for the coming week and had taken the
trouble to buy tickets several days ahead, and had therefore had to
pay a booking fee. When they got to the theatre they found that one
side of the house was almost empty. There had been
no need for
her to be in such a hurry
.

   Let me now put the dream-thoughts
in place of the dream. ‘It was
absurd
to marry so
early. There was
no need for me to be in such a hurry
. I see
from Elise L.’s example that I should have got a husband in
the end. Indeed, I should have got one
a hundred times
better’ (a
treasure
) ‘if I had only
waited
’ (in antithesis to her sister-in-law’s
hurry
). ‘My money’ (or dowry) ‘could have
bought
three
men just as good.’

   It will be observed that the
meaning and context of the numbers have been altered to a far
greater extent in this dream than in the former one. The processes
of modification and distortion have gone further here; and this is
to be explained by the dream-thoughts in this case having to
overcome a specially high degree of endopsychic resistance before
they could obtain representation. Nor should we overlook the fact
that there was an element of absurdity in the dream, namely the
three
seats being taken by
two
people. I will
anticipate my discussion of absurdity in dreams by pointing out
that this absurd detail in the content of the dream was intended to
represent the most strongly emphasized of the dream-thoughts, viz.,
‘it was
absurd
to marry so early.’ The absurdity
which had to find a place in the dream was ingeniously supplied by
the number 3, which was itself derived from a quite immaterial
point of distinction between the two people under comparison - the
3 months’ difference between their ages. The reduction of the
actual 150 florins to 1 florin 50 corresponded to the
low
value
assigned by the dreamer to her husband (or treasure), in
her suppressed thoughts.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

871

III

   The next example exhibits the
methods of calculation employed by dreams, which have brought them
into so much disrepute. A man had a dream that
he was settled in
a chair at the B.’s
- a family with which he had been
formerly acquainted -
and said to them: ‘It was a great
mistake your not letting me have Mali.’ - ‘How old are
you?’ he then went on to ask the girl. - ‘I was born in
1882’, she replied. - ‘Oh, so you’re 28,
then
.’

   Since the dream dates from 1898
this was evidently a miscalculation, and the dreamer’s
inability to do sums would deserve to be compared with that of a
general paralytic unless it could be explained in some other way.
My patient was one of those people who, whenever they happen to
catch sight of a woman, cannot let her alone in their thoughts. The
patient who for some months used regularly to come next after him
in my consulting room, and whom he thus ran into, was a young lady;
he used constantly to make enquiries about her and was most anxious
to create a good impression with her. It was she whose age he
estimated at 28 years. So much by way of explanation of the result
of the ostensible calculation. 1882, incidentally, was the year in
which the dreamer had married. - I may add that he was unable to
resist entering into conversation with the two other members of the
female sex whom he came across in my house - the two maids (neither
of them by any means youthful), one or other of whom used to open
the door to him; he explained their lack of response as being due
to their regarding him as an elderly gentleman of
settled
habits.

IV

   Here is another dream dealing
with figures, which is characterized by the clarity of the manner
in which it was determined, or rather, overdetermined. I owe both
the dream and its interpretation to Dr. B. Dattner. ‘The
landlord of my block of flats, who is a police-constable, dreamt
that
he was on street-duty
. (This was a wish-fulfilment.)
An inspector came up to him, who had the number 22 followed by
62 or 26, on his collar. At any rate there were several twos on
it.

   ‘The mere fact that in
reporting the dream the dreamer broke up the number 2262 showed
that its components had separate meanings. He recalled that the day
before there had been some talk at the police station about the
men’s length of service. The occasion for it was an inspector
who had retired on his pension at the age of 62. The dreamer had
only served for 22 years, and it would be 2 years and 2 months
before he would be eligible for a 90 percent pension. The dream
represented in the first place the fulfilment of a long-cherished
wish of the dreamer’s to reach the rank of inspector. The
superior officer with "2262" on his collar was the
dreamer himself. He was on street duty - another favourite wish of
his - he had served his remaining 2 years and 2 months and now,
like the 62-year-old inspector, he could retire on a full
pension.’¹

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1914:] For analyses
of other dreams containing numbers, see Jung, Marcinowski and
others. These often imply very complicated operations with numbers,
which have been carried out by the dreamer with astonishing
accuracy. See also Jones (1912
a
)