Freud - Complete Works (84 page)

Screen Memories

502

   Our earliest childhood memories
will always be a subject of special interest because the problem
mentioned at the beginning of this paper (of how it comes about
that the impressions which are of most significance for our whole
future usually leave no mnemic images behind) leads us to reflect
upon the origin of conscious memories in general. We shall no doubt
be inclined at first to separate off the screen memories which are
the subject of this study as heterogeneous elements among the
residues of childhood recollections. As regards the remaining
images, we shall probably adopt the simple view that they arise
simultaneously with an experience as an immediate consequence of
the impression it makes and that thereafter they recur from time to
time in accordance with the familiar laws of reproduction. Closer
observation, however, reveals certain features which do not tally
with this view. Above all, there is the following point. In the
majority of significant and in other respects unimpeachable
childhood scenes the subject sees himself in the recollection as a
child, with the knowledge that this child is himself; he sees this
child, however, as an observer from outside the scene would see
him. The Henris duly draw attention to the fact that many of those
taking part in their investigation expressly emphasized this
peculiarity of childhood scenes. Now it is evident that such a
picture cannot be an exact repetition of the impression that was
originally received. For the subject was then in the middle of the
situation and was attending not to himself but to the external
world.

   Whenever in a memory the subject
himself appears in this way as an object among other objects this
contrast between the acting and the recollecting ego may be taken
as evidence that the original impression has been worked over. It
looks as though a memory-trace from childhood had here been
translated back into a plastic and visual form at a later date -
the date of the memory’s arousal. But no reproduction of the
original impression has ever entered the subject’s
consciousness.

Screen Memories

503

   There is another fact that
affords even more convincing evidence in favour of this second
view. Out of a number of childhood memories of significant
experiences, all of them of similar distinctness and clarity, there
will be some scenes which, when they are tested (for instance by
the recollections of adults), turn out to have been falsified. Not
that they are complete inventions; they are false in the sense that
the they have shifted an event to a place where it did not occur -
this is the case in one of the instances quoted by the Henris - or
that they have merged two people into one or substituted one for
the other, or the scenes as a whole give signs of being
combinations of two separate experiences. Simple inaccuracy of
recollection does not play any considerable part here, in view of
the high degree of sensory intensity possessed by the images the
and the efficiency of the function of memory in the young; close
the investigation shows rather that these falsifications of memory
are tendentious - that is, that they serve the purposes of the
repression and replacement of objectionable or disagreeable
impressions. It follows, therefore, that these falsified memories
too, must have originated at a period of life when it has become
the possible for conflicts of this kind and impulsions towards
repression to have made a place for themselves in mental life - far
later, therefore, than the period to which their content belongs.
But in these cases too the falsified memory is the first that we
become aware of: the raw material of memory-traces out of which it
was forged remains unknown to us in its original form.

   The recognition of this fact must
diminish the distinction we have drawn between screen memories and
other memories derived from our childhood. It may indeed be
questioned whether we have any memories at all
from
our
childhood: memories
relating to
our childhood may be all
that we possess. Our childhood memories show us our earliest years
not as they were but as they appeared at the later periods when the
memories were aroused. In these periods of arousal, the child hood
memories did not, as people are accustomed to say,
emerge
;
they were
formed
at that time. And a number of motives, with
no concern for historical accuracy, had a part in forming them, as
well as in the selection of the memories themselves.

504

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

(1901)

505

Intentionally left blank

506

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

FREUD,
SIGM.
, Vienna. Born May 6, 1856, at Freiberg in Moravia.
Studied in Vienna. Pupil of Brücke, the physiologist.
Promotion, 1881. Pupil of Charcot in Paris 1885-6. Habilitation,
1885. Has worked as physician and Dozent at Vienna University since
1886. Proposed as Professor Extraordinarius, 1897. Earlier Freud
produced writings on histology and cerebral anatomy and,
subsequently, clinical works on neuropathology; translated writings
by Charcot and Bernheim. In 1884 ‘Über Coca’, a
paper which introduced cocaine into medicine. In 1891
Zur
Auffassung der Aphasien
. In 1891 and 1893 monographs on the
cerebral palsies of children, which culminated in 1897 in the
volume on the subject in Nothnagel’s
Handbuch
. In 1895
Studien über Hysterie
(with Dr. J. Breuer). Since then
Freud has turned to the study of the psychoneuroses and especially
hysteria, and in a series of shorter works he has stressed the
aetiological significance of sexual life for the neuroses. He has
also developed a new psychotherapy of hysteria, on which only
extremely little has been published. A book,
Die
Traumdeutung
, is in the press.

507

THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

(1900)

Flectere si nequero superos, Acheronta movebo

The Interpretation Of Dreams

508

Preface to the First Edition

I have attempted in this volume to give an
account of the interpretation of dreams; and in doing so I have
not, I believe, trespassed beyond the sphere of interest covered by
neuro-pathology. For psychological investigation shows that the
dream is the first member of a class of abnormal psychical
phenomena of which further members, such as hysterical phobias,
obsessions and delusions, are bound for practical reasons to be a
matter of concern to physicians. As will be seen in the sequel,
dreams can make no such claim to practical importance; but their
theoretical value as a paradigm is on the other hand
proportionately greater. Anyone who has failed to explain the
origin of dream-images can scarcely hope to understand phobias,
obsessions or delusions or to bring a therapeutic influence to bear
on them.

   But the same correlation that is
responsible for the importance of the subject must also bear the
blame for the deficiencies of the present work. The broken threads
which so frequently interrupt my presentation are nothing less than
the many points of contact between the problem of the formation of
dreams and the more comprehensive problems of psycho pathology.
These cannot be treated here, but, if time and strength allow and
further material comes to hand, will form the subject of later
communications.

   The difficulties of presentation
have been further increased by the peculiarities of the material
which I have had to use to illustrate the interpreting of dreams.
It will become plain in the course of the work itself why it is
that none of the dreams already reported in the literature of the
subject or collected from unknown sources could be of any use for
my purposes. The only dreams open to my choice were my own and
those of my patients undergoing psycho-analytic treatment. But I
was precluded from using the latter material by the fact that in
its case the dream-processes were subject to an undesirable
complication owing to the added presence of neurotic features. But
if I was to report my own dreams, it inevitably followed that I
should have to reveal to the public gaze more of the intimacies of
my mental life than I liked, or than is normally necessary for any
writer who is a man of science and not a poet. Such was the painful
but unavoidable necessity; and I have submitted to it rather than
totally abandon the possibility of giving the evidence for my
psychological findings. Naturally, however, I have been unable to
resist the temptation of taking the edge off some of my
indiscretions by omissions and substitutions. But whenever this has
happened, the value of my instance has been very definitely
diminished. I can only express a hope that readers of this book
will put themselves in my difficult situation and treat me with
indulgence, and further, that anyone who finds any sort of
reference to himself in my dreams may be willing to grant me the
right of freedom of thought - in my dream-life, if nowhere
else.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

509

Preface to the Second Edition

If within ten years of the publication of this
book (which is very far from being an easy one to read) a second
edition is called for, this is not due to the interest taken in it
by the professional circles to whom my original preface was
addressed. My psychiatric colleagues seem to have taken no trouble
to overcome the initial bewilderment created by my new approach to
dreams. The professional philosophers have become accustomed to
polishing off the problems of dream-life (which they treat as a
mere appendix to conscious states) in a few sentences - and usually
in the same ones; and they have evidently failed to notice that we
have something here from which a number of inferences can be drawn
that are bound to transform our psychological theories. The
attitude adopted by reviewers in the scientific periodicals could
only lead one to suppose that my work was doomed to be sunk into
complete silence; while the small group of gallant supporters, who
practise medical psycho-analysis under my guidance and who follow
my example in interpreting dreams and make use of their
interpretations in treating neurotics, would never have exhausted
the first edition of the book. Thus it is that I feel indebted to a
wider circle of educated and curious-minded readers, whose interest
has led me to take up once more after nine years this difficult,
but in many respects fundamental, work.

   I am glad to say that I have
found little to change in it. Here and there I have inserted some
new material, added some fresh points of detail derived from my
increased experience, and at some few points recast my statements.
But the essence of what I have written about dreams and their
interpretation, as well as about the psychological theorems to be
deduced from them - all this remains unaltered: subjectively at all
events, it has stood the test of time. Anyone who is acquainted
with my other writings (on the aetiology and mechanism of the
psycho-neuroses) will know that I have never put forward
inconclusive opinions as though they were established facts, and
that I have always sought to modify my statements so that they may
keep in step with my advancing knowledge. In the sphere of
dream-life I have been able to leave my original assertions
unchanged. During the long years in which I have been working at
the problems of the neuroses I have often been in doubt and some
times been shaken in my convictions. At such times it has always
been the
Interpretation of Dreams
that has given me back my
certainty. It is thus a sure instinct which has led my many
scientific opponents to refuse to follow me more especially in my
researches upon dreams.

   An equal durability and power to
withstand any far-reaching alterations during the process of
revision has been shown by the
material
of the book,
consisting as it does of dreams of my own which have for the most
part been overtaken or made valueless by the march of events and by
which I illustrated the rules of dream-interpretation. For this
book has a further subjective significance for me personally - a
significance which I only grasped after I had completed it. It was,
I found, a portion of my own self-analysis, my reaction to my
father’s death - that is to say, to the most important event,
the most poignant loss, of a man’s life. Having discovered
that this was so, I felt unable to obliterate the traces of the
experience. To my readers, however, it will be a matter of
indifference upon what particular material they learn to appreciate
the importance of dreams and how to interpret them.

   Wherever I have found it
impossible to incorporate some essential addition into the original
context, I have indicated its more recent date by enclosing it in
square brackets.¹

BERCHTESGADEN
,
Summer
1908

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1914.] In later
editions these were omitted.

The Interpretation Of Dreams

510

Preface to the Third Edition

Nine years elapsed between the first and
second editions of this book, but after scarcely more than a single
year a third edition has become necessary. This new turn of events
may please me; but just as formerly I was unwilling to regard the
neglect of my book by readers as evidence of its worthlessness, so
I cannot claim that the interest which is now being taken in it is
a proof of its excellence.

   Even the
Interpretation of
Dreams
has not been left untouched by the advance of scientific
knowledge. When I wrote it in 1899, my theory of sexuality was not
yet in existence and the analysis of the more complicated forms of
psycho-neurosis was only just beginning. It was my hope that
dream-interpretation would help to make possible the psychological
analysis of the neuroses; since then a deeper understanding of
neuroses has reacted in turn upon our view of dreams. The theory of
dream-interpretation has itself developed further in a direction on
which insufficient stress had been laid in the first edition of
this book. My own experience, as well as the works of Wilhelm
Stekel and others, have since taught me to form a truer estimate of
the extent and importance of symbolism in dreams (or rather in
unconscious thinking ). Thus in the course of these years much has
accumulated which demands attention. I have endeavoured to take
these innovations into account by making numerous interpolations in
the text and by additional footnotes. If these additions threaten
at times to burst the whole framework of the book or if I have not
everywhere succeeded in bringing the original text up to the level
of our present knowledge, I must ask the reader’s indulgence
for these deficiencies: they are the results and signs of the
present increasingly rapid development of our science. I may even
venture to prophesy in what other directions later editions of this
book - if any should be needed - will differ from the present one.
They will have on the one hand to afford a closer contact with the
copious material presented in imaginative writing, in myths, in
linguistic usage and in folklore; while on the other hand they will
have to deal in greater detail than has here been possible with the
relations of dreams to neuroses and mental diseases.

   Herr Otto Rank has given me
valuable assistance in selecting the additional matter and has been
entirely responsible for correcting the proofs. I owe my thanks to
him and to many others for their contributions and corrections.

VIENNA
,
Spring
1911

The Interpretation Of Dreams

511

Preface to the Fourth Edition

Last year (1913) Dr. A. A. Brill of New York
produced an English translation of this book (
The Interpretation
of Dreams
, G. Allen & Co., London).

   On this occasion Dr. Otto Rank
has not only corrected the proofs but has also contributed two
self-contained chapters to the text - the appendices to Chapter
VI.

VIENNA
,
June
1914

The Interpretation Of Dreams

512

Preface to the Fifth Edition

Interest in the
Interpretation of
Dreams
has not flagged even during the World War, and while it
is still in progress a new edition has become necessary. It has not
been possible, however, to notice fully publications since 1914;
neither Dr. Rank nor I have any knowledge of foreign works since
that date.

   A Hungarian translation, prepared
by Dr. Hollós and Dr. Ferenczi, is on the point of
appearing. In 1916-17 my
Introductory Lectures on
Psycho-Analysis
were published in Vienna by Hugo Heller. The
central section of these, comprising eleven lectures, is devoted to
an account of dreams which aims at being more elementary and at
being in closer contact with the theory of the neuroses than the
present work. On the whole it is in the nature of an epitome of the
Interpretation of Dreams
, though at certain points it enters
into greater detail.

   I have not been able to bring
myself to embark upon any fundamental revision of this book, which
might bring it up to the level of our present psycho-analytic views
but would on the other hand destroy its historic character. I
think, however, that after an existence of nearly twenty years it
has accomplished its task.

BUDAPEST-STEINBRUCH
,
July
1918

The Interpretation Of Dreams

513

Preface to the Sixth Edition

Owing to the difficulties in which the book
trade is placed at present, this new edition has long been in
demand, and the preceding edition has, for the first time, been
reprinted without any alterations. Only the bibliography at the end
of the volume has been completed and brought up to date by Dr. Otto
Rank.

   Thus my assumption that after an
existence of nearly twenty years this book had accomplished its
task has not been confirmed. On the contrary, I might say that it
has a new task to perform. If its earlier function was to offer
some information on the nature of dreams, now it has the no less
important duty of dealing with the obstinate misunderstandings to
which that information is subject.

VIENNA
,
April
1921

The Interpretation Of Dreams

514

Preface to the Eighth Edition

During the interval between the publication of
the last (seventh) edition of this book in 1922 and the present
one, my
Gesammelte Schriften
have been issued in Vienna by
the Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag. The second volume of
that collection consists of an exact reprint of the first edition
of the
Interpretation of Dreams
, while the third volume
contains all the additions that have since been made to it. The
translations of the book which have appeared during the same
interval are based upon the usual, single-volume, form of the work:
a French one by I. Meyerson published under the title of
La
science des rêves
in the ‘Bibliothèque de
Philosophie Contemporaine’ in 1926; a Swedish one by John
Landquist,
Drömtydning
(1927); and a Spanish one by
Luis López Ballesteros y de Torres, which occupies Volumes
VI and VII of the
Obras Completas
. The Hungarian
translation, which I thought was on the point of completion as long
ago as in 1918, has even now not appeared.