Freud - Complete Works (170 page)

   It is no doubt tempting to regard
this as the only possible inference that can be drawn from the
facts of the forgetting of dreams, and to make it the basis for
further conclusions as to the conditions of energy prevailing
during sleeping and waking. For the moment, however, we will stop
at this point. When we have entered a little more deeply into the
psychology of dreams we shall find that the factors making possible
the formation of dreams can be viewed in another way as well. It
may be that the resistance against the dream-thoughts becoming
conscious can be evaded without any reduction having taken place in
its power. And it seems a plausible idea that
both
of the
two factors favouring the formation of dreams - the reduction and
the evasion of the resistance - are simultaneously made possible by
the state of sleep. I will break off here, though I shall pick up
the argument again presently.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

961

   There is another set of
objections to our method of interpreting dreams with which we must
now deal. Our procedure consists in abandoning all those purposive
ideas which normally govern our reflections, in focusing our
attention on a single element of the dream and in then taking note
of whatever involuntary thoughts may occur to us in connection with
it. We then take the next portion of the dream and repeat the
process with
it
. We allow ourselves to be led on by our
thoughts regardless of the direction in which they carry us and
drift on in this way from one thing to another. But we cherish a
confident belief that in the end, without any active intervention
on our part, we shall arrive at the dream-thoughts from which the
dream originated.

   Our critics argue against this
along the following lines. There is nothing wonderful in the fact
that a single element of the dream should lead us
somewhere
;
every idea can be associated with
something
. What is
remarkable is that such an aimless and arbitrary train of thought
should happen to bring us to the dream-thoughts. The probability is
that we are deceiving ourselves. We follow a chain of associations
from one element, till, for one reason or another, it seems to
break off. If we then take up a second element, it is only to be
expected that the originally unrestricted character of our
associations will be narrowed. For we still have the earlier chain
of thoughts in our memory, and for that reason, in analysing the
second dream-idea, we are more likely to hit upon associations
which have something in common with associations from the first
chain. We then delude ourselves into thinking that we have
discovered a thought which is a connecting point between two
elements of the dream. Since we give ourselves complete liberty to
connect thoughts as we please and since in fact the only
transitions from one idea to another which we exclude are those
which operate in normal thinking, we shall find no difficulty in
the long run in concocting out of a number of ‘intermediate
thoughts’ something which we describe as the dream-thoughts
and which - though without any guarantee, since we have no other
knowledge of what the dream-thoughts are - we allege to be the
psychical substitute for the dream. But the whole thing is
completely arbitrary; we are merely exploiting chance connections
in a manner which gives an effect of ingenuity. In this way anyone
who cares to take such useless pains can worry out any
interpretation he pleases from any dream.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

962

   If we were in fact met by
objections such as these, we might defend ourselves by appealing to
the impression made by our interpretations, to the surprising
connections with other elements of the dream which emerge in the
course of our pursuing a single one of its ideas, and to the
improbability that anything which gives such an exhaustive account
of the dream could have been arrived at except by following up
psychical connections which had already been laid down. We might
also point out in our defence that our procedure in interpreting
dreams is identical with the procedure by which we resolve
hysterical symptoms;; and there the correctness of our method is
warranted by the coincident emergence and disappearance of the
symptoms, or, to use a simile, the assertions made in the text are
borne out by the accompanying illustrations. But we have no reason
for evading the problem of how it is possible to reach a
pre-existing goal by following the drift of an arbitrary and
purposeless chain of thoughts; since, though we may not be able to
solve the problem, we can completely cut the ground from under
it.

   For it is demonstrably untrue
that we are being carried along a purposeless stream of ideas when,
in the process of interpreting a dream, we abandon reflection and
allow involuntary ideas to emerge. It can be shown that all that we
can ever get rid of are purposive ideas that are
known
to
us; as soon as we have done this,
unknown
- or, as we
inaccurately say, ‘unconscious’ - purposive ideas take
charge and thereafter determine the course of the involuntary
ideas. No influence that we can bring to bear upon our mental
processes can ever enable us to think without purposive ideas; nor
am I aware of any states of psychical confusion which can do
so.¹ Psychiatrists have been far too ready in this respect to
abandon their belief in the connectedness of psychical processes. I
know for a fact that trains of thought without purposive ideas no
more occur in hysteria and paranoia than they do in the formation
or resolution of dreams. It may be that they do not occur in any of
the endogenous psychical disorders. Even the deliria of confusional
states may have a meaning, if we are to accept Leuret’s
brilliant suggestion that they are only unintelligible to us owing
to the gaps in them. I myself have formed the same opinion when I
have had the opportunity of observing them. Deliria are the work of
a censorship which no longer takes the trouble to conceal its
operation; instead of collaborating in producing a new version that
shall be unobjectionable, it ruthlessly deletes whatever it
disapproves of, so that what remains becomes quite disconnected.
This censorship acts exactly like the censorship of newspapers at
the Russian frontier, which allows foreign journals to fall into
the hands of the readers whom it is its business to protect only
after a quantity of passages have been blacked out.

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1914:] It was not
until later that my attention was drawn to the fact that Eduard von
Hartmann takes the same view on thus important matter of
psychology: ‘In discussing the part played by the unconscious
in artistic creation, Eduard von Hartmann (1890,
1
, Section
B, Chapter V) made a clear statement of the law in accordance with
which the association of ideas is governed by unconscious purposive
ideas, though he was unaware of the scope of the law. He set out to
prove that "every combination of sensuous presentations, when
it is not left purely to chance, but is led to a definite end,
requires the help of the unconscious", and that the part
played by conscious interest is to stimulate the unconscious to
select the most appropriate idea among the countless possible ones.
It is the unconscious which makes the appropriate selection of a
purpose for the interest and this "holds good of the
association of ideas in abstract thinking as well as in sensuous
imagining and artistic combination" and in the production of
jokes. For this reason a limitation of the association of ideas to
an exciting idea and an excited idea (in the sense of a pure
association psychology) can not be upheld. Such a limitation could
be justified "only if there are conditions in human life in
which man is free not only from every conscious purpose, but also
from the sway or co-operation of every unconscious interest, every
passing mood. This is, however, a condition hardly ever occurring,
for even if one in appearance completely abandons his train of
thought to accident, or if one abandons oneself entirely to the
involuntary dreams of fancy, yet always other leading interests,
dominant feelings and moods prevail at one time rather than at
another, and these will always exert an influence on the
association of ideas." "In semi-conscious dreams always
only such ideas as correspond to the main interest of the moment
occur." The emphasis thus laid upon the influence of feelings
and moods on the free sequence of thoughts make it possible to
justify the methodological procedure of psycho-analysis completely
from the standpoint of Hartmann’s psychology.’
(Pohorilles, 1913.) - Du Prel (1885, 107) refers to the fact that
after we have vainly tried to recall a name, it often comes into
our heads again suddenly and without any warning. He concludes from
this that unconscious but none the less purposeful thinking has
taken place and that its result has suddenly entered
consciousness.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

963

   It may be that free play of ideas
with a fortuitous chain of associations is to be found in
destructive organic cerebral processes; what is regarded as such in
the psychoneuroses can always be explained as an effect of the
censorship’s influence upon a train of thought which has been
pushed into the foreground by purposive ideas that have remained
hidden.¹ It has been regarded as an unfailing sign of an
association being uninfluenced by purposive ideas if the
associations (or images) in question seem to be interrelated in
what is described as a ‘superficial’ manner - by
assonance, verbal ambiguity, temporal coincidence without
connection in meaning, or by any association of the kind that we
allow in jokes or in play upon words. This characteristic is
present in the chains of thought which lead from the elements of a
dream to the intermediate thoughts and from these to the
dream-thoughts proper; we have seen instances of this - not without
astonishment - in many dream-analyses. No connection was too loose,
no joke too bad, to serve as a bridge from one thought to another.
But the true explanation of this easy-going state of things is soon
found.
Whenever one psychical element is linked with another by
an objectionable or superficial association, there is also a
legitimate and deeper link between them which is subjected to the
resistance of the censorship
.

   The real reason for the
prevalence of superficial associations is not the abandonment of
purposive ideas but the pressure of the censorship. Superficial
associations replace deep ones if the censorship makes the normal
connecting paths impassable. We may picture, by way of analogy, a
mountain region, where some general interruption of traffic (owing
to floods, for instance) has blocked the main, major roads, but
where communications are still maintained over inconvenient and
steep footpaths normally used only by the hunter.

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1909:] This
assertion has received striking confirmation from C. G.
Jung’s analyses in cases of dementia praecox. (Jung,
1907.)

The Interpretation Of Dreams

964

   Two cases may here be
distinguished, though in essence they are the same. In the first of
these, the censorship is directed only against the
connection
between two thoughts, which are unobjectionable
separately. If so, the two thoughts will enter consciousness in
succession; the connection between them will remain concealed, but,
instead, a superficial link between them will occur to us, of which
we should otherwise never have thought. This link is usually
attached to some part of the complex of ideas quite other than that
on which the suppressed and essential connection is based. The
second case is where the two thoughts are in themselves subject to
censorship on account of their content. If so, neither of them
appears in its true shape but only in a modified one which replaces
it; and the two replacing thoughts are chosen in such a way that
they have a superficial association that repeats the essential
connection which relates the two thoughts that have been replaced.
In both these cases the pressure of the censorship has resulted
in a displacement from a normal and serious association to a
superficial and apparently absurd one
.

   Since we are aware that
displacements of this kind occur, we have no hesitation when we are
interpreting dreams in relying upon superficial associations as
much as upon others.¹

   In the psycho-analysis of
neuroses the fullest use is made of these two theorems - that, when
conscious purposive ideas are abandoned, concealed purposive ideas
assume control of the current of ideas, and that superficial
associations are only substitutes by displacement for suppressed
deeper ones. Indeed, these theorems have become basic pillars of
psycho-analytic technique. When I instruct a patient to abandon
reflection of any kind and to tell me whatever comes into his head,
I am relying firmly on the presumption that he will not be able to
abandon the purposive ideas inherent in the treatment and I feel
justified in inferring that what seem to be the most innocent and
arbitrary things which he tells me are in fact related to his
illness. There is another purposive idea of which the patient has
no suspicion - one relating to myself. The full estimate of the
importance of these two theorems, as well as more detailed
information about them, fall within the province of an account of
the technique of psycho-analysis. Here, then, we have reached one
of the frontier posts at which, in accordance with our programme,
we must drop the subject of dream-interpretation.²