part in this dream. Continuing her associations, and apparently far afield from topics relevant to the dream, the dreamer relates that yesterday many things of a psychological nature had been discussed in her presence, and that a relative made the remark: “The cave man (Urmensch) continues to live in all of us.” Now we think we understand. That gave her an excellent opportunity of picturing her father as continuing to live. So in the dream she made of him a clockman (Uhrmensch) by having him announce the quarter-hours at noon time.
You may not be able to disregard the similarity which this examples bears to a pun, and it really has happened frequently that the dreamer’s pun is attributed to the interpreter. There are still other examples in which it is not at all easy to decide whether one is dealing with a joke or a dream. But you will recall that the same doubt confronted us when we were dealing with slips of the tongue. A man tells us a dream of his, that his uncle, while they were sitting in the latter’s automobile, gave him a kiss. He very quickly supplies the interpretation himself. It means “auto-eroticism,” (a term taken from the study of the libido, or love impulse, and designating satisfaction of that impulse without an external object). Did this man permit himself to make fun of us and give out as a dream a pun that occurred to him? I do not believe so; he really dreamed it. Whence comes the astounding similarity? This question at one time led me quite a ways from my path, by making it necessary for me to make a thorough investigation of the problem of humor itself. By so doing I came to the conclusion that the origin of wit lies in a foreconscious train of thought which is left for a moment to unconscious manipulation, from which it then emerges as a joke. Under the influence of the unconscious it experiences the workings of the mechanisms there in force, namely, of condensation and displacement, that is, of the same processes which we found active in the dream work, and it is to this agreement that we are to ascribe the similarity between wit and the dream, wherever it occurs. The unintentional “dream joke” has, however, none of the pleasure-giving quality of the ordinary joke. Why that is so, greater penetration into the study of wit may teach you. The “dream joke” seems a poor joke to us, it does not make us laugh, it leaves us cold.
Here we are also following in the footsteps of ancient dream interpretation, which has left us, in addition to much that is useless, many a good example of dream interpretation we ourselves cannot surpass. I am now going to tell you a dream of historical importance which Plutarch and Artemidorus of Daldis both tell concerning Alexander the Great, with certain variations. When the King was engaged in besieging the city of Tyre (322 B.C.), which was being stubbornly defended, he once dreamed that he saw a dancing satyr. Aristandros, his dream interpreter, who accompanied the army, interpreted this dream for him by making of the word Satyros, [Greek] sa Turos, “Thine is Tyre,” and thus promising him a triumph over the city. Alexander allowed himself to be influenced by this interpretation to continue the siege, and finally captured Tyre. The interpretation, which seems artificial enough, was without doubt the correct one.
3. I can imagine that it will make a special impression on you to hear that objections to our conception of the dream have been raised also by persons who, as psychoanalysts, have themselves been interested in the interpretation of dreams. It would have been too extraordinary if so pregnant an opportunity for new errors had remained unutilized, and thus, owing to comprehensible confusions and unjustified generalizations, there have been assertions made which, in point of incorrectness are not far behind the medical conception of dreams. One of these you already know. It is the declaration that the dream is occupied with the dreamer’s attempts at adaptation to his present environment, and attempts to solve future problems, in other words, that the dream follows a “prospective tendency” (A. Maeder). We have already shown that this assertion is based upon a confusion of the dream with the latent thoughts of the dream, that as a premise it overlooks the existence of the dream-work. In characterizing that psychic activity which is unconscious and to which the latent thoughts of the dream belong, the above assertion is no novelty, nor is it exhaustive, for this unconscious psychic activity occupies itself with many other things besides preparation for the future. A much worse confusion seems to underlie the assurance that back of every dream one finds the “death-clause,” or death-wish. I am not quite certain what this formula is meant to indicate, but I suppose that back of it is a confusion of the dream with the whole personality of the dreamer.
An unjustified generalization, based on few good examples, is the pronouncement that every dream permits of two interpretations, one such as we have explained, the so-called psychoanalytic, and another, the so-called anagogical or mystical, which ignores the instinctive impulses and aims at a representation of the higher psychic functions (V. Silberer). There are such dreams, but you will try in vain to extend this conception to even a majority of the dreams. But after everything you have heard, the statement will seem very incomprehensible that all dreams can be interpreted bisexually, that is, as the concurrence of two tendencies which may be designated as male and female (A. Adler). To be sure, there are a few such dreams, and you may learn later that these are built up in the manner of certain hysterical symptoms. I mention all these newly discovered general characteristics of the dream in order to warn you against them or at least in order not to leave you in doubt as to how I judge them.
4. At one time the objective value of dream research was called into question by the observation that patients undergoing analysis accommodate the content of their dreams to the favorite theories of their physicians, so that some dream predominantly of sexual impulses, others of the desire for power and still others even of rebirth (W. Stekel). The weight of this observation is diminished by the consideration that people dreamed before there was such a thing as a psychoanalytic treatment to influence their dreams, and that those who are now undergoing treatment were also in the habit of dreaming before the treatment was commenced. The meaning of this novel discovery can soon be recognized as a matter of course and as of no consequence for the theory of the dream. Those day-remnants which give rise to the dream are the overflow from the strong interest of the waking life. If the remarks of the physician and the stimuli which he gives have become significant to the patient under analysis, then they become a part of the day’s remnants, can serve as psychic stimuli for the formation of a dream along with other, emotionally-charged, unsolved interests of the day, and operate much as do the somatic stimuli which act upon the sleeper during his sleep. Just like these other incitors of the dream, the sequence of ideas which the physician sets in motion may appear in the manifest content, or may be traced in the latent content of the dream. Indeed, we know that one can produce dreams experimentally, or to speak more accurately, one can insert into the dream a part of the dream material. Thus the analyst in influencing his patients, merely plays the role of an experimenter in the manner of Mourly Vold, who places the limbs of his subjects in certain positions.
One can often influence the dreamer as to the subject-matter of his dream, but one can never influence what he will dream about it. The mechanism of the dream-work and the unconscious wish that is hidden in the dream are beyond the reach of all foreign influences. We already realized, when we evaluated the dreams caused by bodily stimuli, that the peculiarity and self-sufficiency of the dream life shows itself in the reaction with which the dream retorts to the bodily or physical stimuli which are presented. The statement here discussed, which aims to throw doubt upon the objectivity of dream research, is again based on a confusion — this time of the whole dream with the dream material.
This much, ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to tell you concerning the problems of the dream. You will suspect that I have omitted a great deal, and have yourselves discovered that I had to be inconclusive on almost all points. But that is due to the relation which the phenomena of the dream have to those of the neuroses. We studied the dream by way of introduction to the study of the neuroses, and that was surely more correct than the reverse would have been. But just as the dream prepares us for the understanding of the neuroses, so in turn the correct evaluation of the dream can only be gained after a knowledge of neurotic phenomena has been won.
I do not know what you will think about this, but I must assure you that I do not regret having taken so much of your interest and of your available time for the problems of the dream. There is no other field in which one can so quickly become convinced of the correctness
