Freud - Complete Works (430 page)

Authors: Sigmund Freud

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was repressed and replaced by this later
impulse. Defaecation-dreams can thus also be impotence-dreams.

¹
F. S. Krauss, ‘Südslavische
Volksüberlieferungen, die sich auf den Geschlechtsverkehr
beziehen [Southern Slav Folk Traditions concerning Sexual
Intercourse]’,
Anthropophyteia
,
5
, 293, No.
697.

Dreams In Folklore

2539

The difference between the
interpretations is not so pronounced as might appear at first
sight. The defaecation-dreams too, in which the victim is a woman,
deal with impotence - relative impotence, at least, towards the
particular person who no longer has any attraction for the dreamer.
A defaecation-dream thus becomes the dream of a man who can no
longed satisfy a woman, as well as of a man whom a woman no longer
satisfies.

The same interpretation (as an
impotence-dream) can also be applied to a dream in the
Facetiae
of Poggio, which manifestly, it is true, poses as
the dream of a jealous man - that is, in fact, of a man who does
not think he can satisfy his wife.

THE RING OF FIDELITY
¹

Franciscus Philelphus was jealous of his wife and became tormented
by the greatest fear that she had to do with another man, and day
and night he lay on the watch. Since what occupies us in waking is
wont to return to us in dreams, there appeared to him during his
sleep a demon, who said to him that if he would act according to
his bidding his wife would always remain faithful to him.
Franciscus said to him in the dream that he would be very indebted
to him and promised him a reward.

‘Take this ring,’ replied the demon, ‘and wear it
on your finger with care. As long as you wear it, your wife cannot
lie with any other man without your knowledge.’

As
he awoke, excited with joy, he felt that he was pushing his finger
into the vulva of his wife.

The
jealous have no better expedient; in this way their wives can never
let themselves be taken by another man without the knowledge of
their husbands.

¹
Poggio (1905, No. 133).

Dreams In Folklore

2540

This anecdote of Poggio is
considered to be the source of a tale by Rabelais, which, in other
respects very similar, is clearer inasmuch as it actually describes
the husband bringing home a young wife in his old age, who then
gives him grounds for jealous fears.¹

Hans Carvel was a learned, experienced, industrious man, a man of
honour, of good understanding and judgement, benevolent, charitable
to the poor and a cheerful philosopher. Withal a good companion,
who was fond of a jest, somewhat corpulent and unsteady, but
otherwise well set up in every way. In his old age he married the
daughter of Concordat the bailiff, a young, comely, good, gay,
lively and pleasing woman, merely perchance a little too friendly
towards the gentlemen neighbours and menservants. So it befell that
in the course of some weeks he became as jealous as a tiger and was
suspicious that she might be getting her buttocks drummed upon
elsewhere. To guard against this, he related to her a whole stock
of pleasing histories of the punishments for adultery, often read
aloud to her lovely legends of virtuous women, preached her the
gospel of chastity, wrote her a small volume of songs of praise to
matrimonial fidelity, inveighed in sharp and caustic words against
the wantonness of undisciplined wives and in addition to all
bestowed on her a magnificent necklace set round with oriental
sapphires.

But
regardless of this, he saw her going about with the neighbours in
such a friendly and sociable fashion that his jealousy mounted yet
higher. One night at that time, as he was lying with her in bed, in
the midst of these painful thoughts, he dreamt he spoke with the
Fiend Incarnate and bewailed his grief to him. But the Devil
comforted him, put a ring on his finger and said: ‘Take this
ring; as long as you carry it on your finger no other man can have
carnal knowledge of your wife without your knowledge and against
your will.’ ‘A thousand thanks, Sir Devil!’ said
Hans Carvel, ‘I will deny Mahomet before ever I take this
ring from my finger.’ The Devil disappeared. But Hans Carvel
awoke with a joyful heart and found that he had his finger in his
wife’s what-d’you-call-it.

I
forgot to relate how the young woman, when she felt this, jerked
her buttocks backwards as if to say: ‘Stop! No, no!
That’s not what ought to be put in there!’ - which made
Hans Carvel imagine that someone wanted to pull off his
ring.

Is
that not an infallible measure? Believe me! act after this example
and take care at all times to have your wife’s ring on your
finger!
²

The Devil, who appears here as
counsellor, as he does in the treasure-dreams, gives us a clue to
something of the dreamer’s latent thoughts. Originally at
least, he was supposed to ‘take’ the unfaithful wife
who is hard to keep a watch on. He then shows in the manifest dream
an infallible means of keeping her permanently. In this too we
recognize an analogy with the wish to get rid of someone
(death-wish) in the defaecation-dreams.

¹ Rabelais,
Pantagruel
, Chapter 28 of
Le Tiers
Livre
.

² [
Footnote by
Freud:] Goethe is concerned with this
symbolism of the ring and the finger in a Venetian Epigram
(
Paralipomena
, No. 65, Sophienausgabe, Abt. II, Bd. 5,
381).

Costly rings I possess! Excellent stones, engraved

In lofty style and conception, held by the purest of
gold;

Dearly men pay for these rings, adorned with fiery
stones,

Oft have you seen them sparkle over the gaming-table.

But one little ring I know, whose virtue is not the
same,

Which Hans Carvel once possessed, sadly, when he was
old.

Foolish he pushed in the ring the smallest of all his ten
fingers,

The eleventh, the biggest, alone is worthy and fit to be
there.

Dreams In Folklore

2541

We will conclude this small
collection of dreams by adding a lottery-dream, whose connection
with the others is rather slight, but which serves to confirm the
suggestion which we put forward earlier that a lottery symbolizes a
marriage contract.

IT’S NO USE CRYING OVER SPILT
MILK!
¹

A
merchant had a strange dream. He dreamt that he saw a woman’s
arse with everything that belonged to it. On one half was a figure
1 and on the other a 3. Before this, the merchant had had the idea
of buying a lottery ticket. It seemed to him that this picture in
his dream was a lucky omen. Without waiting till the ninth hour, he
ran to the bank first thing in the morning, in order to buy his
ticket. He arrived there and without pausing to think he demanded
ticket Number Thirteen, the same figures that he had seen in his
dream. After he had bought his ticket, not a day passed on which he
did not look in all the newspapers to see if his number had won.
After a week, or at the most after ten days, the list of the draw
came out. When he looked through, he saw that his number had not
been drawn but the number 103, Series 8, and that number had won
200,000 roubles. The merchant nearly tore his hair out. ‘I
must have made a mistake! there is something wrong!’ He was
beside himself, he was almost inconsolable and could not conceive
what his having had such a dream could mean. Then he resolved to
discuss the matter with his friend to see if he could not account
for his misfortune. He met his friend and told him everything in
minute detail. Then his friend said: ‘Oh you simpleton!
Didn’t you see the nought between the number 1 and the 3 on
the arse?’ ‘A-a-ah, the Devil take it, it never
occurred to me that the arse had a nought.’ ‘But it was
there plain and clear, only you didn’t work out the lottery
number right. And the number 8 belonging to the series - the cunt
shows you that - it’s like a number 8.’ - It’s no
use crying over spilt milk!

¹
Tarasevsky (1909, 40).

Dreams In Folklore

2542

Our intention in putting together
this short paper was twofold. On the one hand we wanted to suggest
that one should not be deterred by the often repulsively dirty and
indecent nature of this popular material from seeking in it
valuable confirmation of psycho-analytic views. Thus on this
occasion we have been able to establish the fact that folklore
interprets dream-symbols in the same way as psycho-analysis, and
that, contrary to loudly proclaimed popular opinion, it derives a
group of dreams from needs and wishes which have become immediate.
On the other hand, we should like to express the view that it is
doing the common people an injustice to assume that they employ
this form of entertainment merely to satisfy the coarsest desires.
It seems rather that behind these ugly façades are concealed
mental reactions to impressions of life which are to be taken
seriously, which even strike a sad note - reactions to which common
people are ready to surrender, but only if they are accompanied by
a yield of coarse pleasure.

2543

ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

(1913 [1911])

2544

Intentionally left blank

2545

ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

In response to a friendly request by the
Secretary of your Section of Neurology and Psychiatry, I venture to
draw the attention of this Congress to the subject of
psycho-analysis, which is being extensively studied at the present
time in Europe and America.

Psycho-analysis is a remarkable
combination, for it comprises not only a method of research into
the neuroses but also a method of treatment based on the aetiology
thus discovered. I may begin by saying that psycho-analysis is not
a child of speculation, but the outcome of experience; and for that
reason, like every new product of science, is unfinished. It is
open to anyone to convince himself by his own investigations of the
correctness of the theses embodied in it, and to help in the
further development of the study.

Psycho-analysis started with
researches into hysteria, but in the course of years it has
extended far beyond that field of work. The
Studies on
Hysteria
by Breuer and myself, published in 1895, were the
beginnings of psycho-analysis. They followed in the track of
Charcot’s work on ‘traumatic’ hysteria,
Liébeault’s and Bernheim’s investigations of the
phenomena of hypnosis, and Janet’s studies of unconscious
mental processes. Psycho-analysis soon found itself in sharp
opposition to Janet’s views, because (
a
) it declined
to trace back hysteria directly to congenital hereditary
degeneracy, (
b
) it offered, instead of a mere description, a
dynamic explanation based on the interplay of psychical forces and
(
c
) it ascribed the origin of psychical dissociation (whose
importance had been recognized by Janet as well) not to a failure
of mental synthesis resulting from a congenital disability, but to
a special psychical process known as ‘repression’
(‘
Verdrängung
’).

It was conclusively proved that
hysterical symptoms are residues (reminiscences) of profoundly
moving experiences, which have been withdrawn from everyday
consciousness, and that their form is determined (in a manner that
excludes deliberate action) by details of the traumatic effects of
the experiences. On this view, the therapeutic prospects lie in the
possibility of getting rid of this ‘repression’, so as
to allow part of the unconscious psychical material to become
conscious and thus to deprive it of its pathogenic power. This view
is a dynamic one, in so far as it regards psychical processes as
displacements of psychical energy which can be gauged by the amount
of their effect on the affective elements. This is most significant
in hysteria, where the process of ‘conversion’ creates
the symptoms by transforming a quantity of mental impulses into
somatic innervations.

On Psycho-Analysis

2546

The first psycho-analytic
examinations and attempts at treatment were made with the help of
hypnotism. Afterwards this was abandoned and the work was carried
out by the method of ‘free association’, with the
patient remaining in his normal state. This modification had the
advantage of enabling the procedure to be applied to a far larger
number of cases of hysteria, as well as to other neuroses and also
to healthy people. The development of a special technique of
interpretation became necessary, however, in order to draw
conclusions from the expressed ideas of the person under
investigation. These interpretations established with complete
certainty the fact that psychical dissociations are maintained
entirely by ‘internal resistances’. The conclusion
seems justified, therefore, that the dissociations have originated
owing to internal conflict, which has led to the
‘repression’ of the underlying impulse. To overcome
this conflict and in that way to cure the neurosis, the guiding
hand of a doctor trained in psycho-analysis is required.

Furthermore, it has been shown to
be true quite generally that in all neuroses the pathological
symptoms are really the end-products of such conflicts, which have
led to ‘repression’ and ‘splitting’ of the
mind. The symptoms are generated by different mechanisms:
(
a
) either as formations in substitution for the repressed
forces, or (
b
) as compromises between the repressing and
repressed forces, or (
c
) as reaction-formations and
safeguards against the repressed forces.

Researches were further extended
to the conditions which determine whether or not psychical
conflicts will lead to ‘repression’ (that is, to
dissociation dynamically caused), since it goes without saying that
a psychical conflict,
per se
, may also have a normal
outcome. The conclusion arrived at by psycho-analysis was that such
conflicts were always between the sexual instincts (using the word
‘sexual’ in the widest sense) and the wishes and trends
of the remainder of the ego. In neuroses it is the sexual instincts
that succumb to ‘repression’ and so constitute the most
important basis for the genesis of symptoms, which may accordingly
be regarded as substitutes for sexual satisfactions.

On Psycho-Analysis

2547

Our work on the question of the
disposition to neurotic affections has added the
‘infantile’ factor to the somatic and hereditary ones
hitherto recognized. Psycho-analysis was obliged to trace back
patients’ mental life to their early infancy, and the
conclusion was reached that inhibitions of mental
development (‘infantilisms’) present a disposition
to neurosis. In particular, we have learnt from our investigations
of sexual life that there really is such a thing as
‘infantile sexuality’, that the sexual instinct is made
up of many components and passes through a complicated course of
development, the final outcome of which, after many restrictions
and transformations, is the ‘normal’ sexuality of
adults. The puzzling perversions of the sexual instinct which occur
in adults appear to be either inhibitions of development, fixations
or lop-sided growths. Thus neuroses are the negative of
perversions.

The cultural development imposed
on mankind is the factor which necessitates the restrictions and
repressions of the sexual instinct, greater or lesser sacrifices
being demanded according to the individual constitution.
Development is hardly ever achieved smoothly, and disturbances may
occur (whether on account of the individual constitution or of
premature sexual incidents) leaving behind a disposition to future
neuroses. Such dispositions may remain harmless if the
adult’s life proceeds satisfactorily and quietly; but they
become pathogenic if the conditions of mature life forbid
satisfaction of the libido or make too high demands on its
suppression.

Researches into the sexual
activity of children have led to a further conception of the sexual
instinct, based not on its purposes but on its sources. The sexual
instinct possesses in a high degree the capacity for being diverted
from direct sexual aims and for being directed towards higher aims
which are no longer sexual (‘sublimation’). The
instinct is thus enabled to make most important contributions to
the social and artistic achievements of humanity.

On Psycho-Analysis

2548

Recognition of the simultaneous
presence of the three factors of ‘infantilism’,
‘sexuality’ and ‘repression’ constitutes
the main characteristic of the psycho-analytic theory, and marks
its distinction from other views of pathological mental life. At
the same time, psycho-analysis has demonstrated that there is no
fundamental difference, but only one of degree, between the mental
life of normal people, of neurotics and of psychotics. A normal
person has to pass through the same repressions and has to struggle
with the same substitutive structures; the only difference is that
he deals with these events with less trouble and better success.
The psycho-analytic method of investigation can accordingly be
applied equally to the explanation of normal psychical phenomena,
and has made it possible to discover the close relationship between
pathological psychical products and normal structures such as
dreams, the small blunders of everyday life, and such valuable
phenomena as jokes, myths and imaginative works. The explanation of
these has been carried furthest in the case of dreams, and has
resulted here in the following general formula: ‘A dream is a
disguised fulfilment of a repressed wish.’ The interpretation
of dreams has as its object the removal of the disguise to which
the dreamer’s thoughts have been subjected. It is, moreover,
a highly valuable aid to psycho-analytic technique, for it
constitutes the most convenient method of obtaining insight into
unconscious psychical life.

There is often a tendency in
medical and especially in psychiatric circles to contradict the
theories of psycho-analysis without any real study or practical
application of them. This is due not only to the striking novelty
of these theories and the contrast they present to the views
hitherto held by psychiatrists, but also to the fact that the
premisses and technique of psycho-analysis are much more nearly
related to the field of psychology than to that of medicine. It
cannot be disputed, however, that purely medical and
non-psychological teachings have hitherto done very little towards
an understanding of mental life. The progress of psycho-analysis is
further retarded by the dread felt by the average observer of
seeing himself in his own mirror. Men of science tend to meet
emotional resistances with arguments, and thus satisfy themselves
to their own satisfaction! Whoever wishes not to ignore a truth
will do well to distrust his antipathies, and, if he wishes to
submit the theory of psycho-analysis to a critical examination, let
him first analyse himself.

On Psycho-Analysis

2549

I cannot think that in these few
sentences I have succeeded in painting a clear picture of the
principles and purposes of psycho-analysis. But I will add a list
of the chief publications on the subject, a study of which will
give further enlightenment to any whom I may have interested.

1. Breuer and Freud,
Studies on
Hysteria
, 1895. Fr. Deuticke, Vienna.

A portion of
the above has been translated into English in ‘Selected
Papers on Hysteria and other Psycho‑neuroses’, by Dr.
A. A. Brill, New York, 1909.

2. Freud,
Drei Abhandlungen zur
Sexualtheorie
, Vienna, 1905.

English translation
by Dr. Brill, ‘Three Contributions to the Sexual
Theory’, New York, 1910.

3. Freud,
Zur Psychopathologie des
Alltagslebens
, S. Karger, Berlin. 3rd edition, 1910.

4. Freud,
Die Traumdeutung
,
Vienna, 1900. 3rd ed., 1911.

5. Freud, ‘The Origin and
Development of Psycho-analysis’,

Amer. Jour. of
Psychology
, April, 1910. Also in German:

Ueber
Psychoanalyse
. Five Lectures given at the Clark University,
Worcester, Mass, 1909.

6. Freud,
Der Witz und seine
Beziehung zum Unbewussten
, Vienna, 1905.

7. Freud,
Collection of minor papers
on the Doctrine of Neuroses
,

1893-1906.
Vienna,1906.

8. Idem. A second collection. Vienna,
1909.

9. Hitschmann,
Freud’s
Neurosenlehre
, Vienna, 1911.