The tertium comparationis in the analogies here employed, the quantitative element of
which an allotted amount is placed at the free disposal of the dream, admits of a still
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closer application to the elucidation of the dream-structure. As shown on pp. 190 ff., we
can recognise in most dreams a centre supplied with a special sensory intensity. This is as
a rule the direct representation of the wish-fulfilment; for if we reverse the displacements
of the dream-work we find that the psychic intensity of the elements in the dreamthoughts
is replaced by the sensory intensity of the elements in the dream-content. The
elements in the neighbourhood of the wish-fulfilment have often nothing to do with its
meaning, but prove to be the offshoots of painful thoughts which are opposed to the wish.
But owing to their connection with the central element, often artificially established, they
secure so large a share of its intensity as to become capable of representation. Thus, the
representative energy of the wish-fulfilment diffuses itself over a certain sphere of
association, within which all elements are raised to representation, including even those
that are in themselves without resources. In dreams containing several dynamic wishes
we can easily separate and delimit the spheres of the individual wish-fulfilments, and we
shall find that the gaps in the dream are often of the nature of boundary-zones.
Although the foregoing remarks have restricted the significance of the day-residues for
the dream, they are none the less deserving of some further attention. For they must be a
necessary ingredient in dream-formation, inasmuch as experience reveals the surprising
fact that every dream shows in its content a connection with a recent waking impression,
often of the most indifferent kind. So far we have failed to understand the necessity for
this addition to the dream-mixture (p. 84). This necessity becomes apparent only when
we bear in mind the part played by the unconscious wish, and seek further information in
the psychology of the neuroses. We shall then learn that an unconscious idea, as such, is
quite incapable of entering into the preconscious, and that it can exert an influence there
only by establishing touch with a harmless idea already belonging to the preconscious, to
which it transfers its intensity, and by which it allows itself to be screened. This is the
fact of transference, which furnishes the explanation of so many surprising occurrences
in the psychic life of neurotics. The transference may leave the idea from the
preconscious unaltered, though the latter will thus acquire an unmerited intensity, or it
may force upon this some modification derived from the content of the transferred idea. I
trust the reader will pardon my fondness for comparisons with daily life, but I feel
tempted to say that the situation for the repressed idea is like that of the American dentist
in Austria, who may not carry on his practice unless he can get a duly installed doctor of
medicine to serve him as a signboard and legal `cover'. Further, just as it is not exactly
the busiest physicians who form such alliances with dental practitioners, so in the psychic
life the choice as regards covers for repressed ideas does not fall upon such preconscious
or conscious ideas as have themselves attracted enough of the attention active in the
preconscious. The unconscious prefers to entangle with its connections either those
impressions and ideas of the preconscious which have remained unnoticed as being
indifferent or those which have immediately had attention withdrawn from them again
(by rejection). It is a well-known proposition of the theory of associations, confirmed by
all experience, that ideas which have formed a very intimate connection in one direction
assume a negative type of attitude towards whole groups of new connections. I have even
attempted at one time to base a theory of hysterical paralysis on this principle.
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If we assume that the same need of transference on the part of the repressed ideas, of
which we have become aware through the analysis of the neurosis, makes itself felt in
dreams also, we can at once explain two of the problems of the dream: namely, that every
dream-analysis reveals an interweaving of a recent impression, and that this recent
element is often of the most indifferent character. We may add what we have already
learned elsewhere, that the reason why these recent and indifferent elements so frequently
find their way into the dream-content as substitutes for the very oldest elements of the
dream-thoughts is that they have the least to fear from the resisting censorship. But while
this freedom from censorship explains only the preference shown to the trivial elements,
the constant presence of recent elements points to the necessity for transference. Both
groups of impressions satisfy the demand of the repressed ideas for material still free
from associations, the indifferent ones because they have offered no occasion for
extensive associations, and the recent ones because they have not had sufficient time to
form such associations.
We thus see that the day-residues, among which we may now include the indifferent
impressions, not only borrow something from the UCS. when they secure a share in
dream-formation -- namely, the motive-power at the disposal of the repressed wish -- but
they also offer to the unconscious something that is indispensable to it, namely, the points
of attachment necessary for transference. If we wished to penetrate more deeply into the
psychic processes, we should have to throw a clearer light on the play of excitations
between the preconscious and the unconscious, and indeed the study of the
psychoneuroses would impel us to do so; but dreams, as it happens, give us no help in
this respect.
Just one further remark as to the day-residues. There is no doubt that it is really these that
disturb our sleep, and not our dreams which, on the contrary, strive to guard our sleep.
But we shall return to this point later.
So far we have discussed the dream-wish; we have traced it back to the sphere of the
UCS., and have analysed its relation to the day-residues, which, in their turn, may be
either wishes, or psychic impulses of any other kind, or simply recent impressions. We
have thus found room for the claims that can be made for the dream-forming significance
of our waking mental activity in all its multifariousness. It might even prove possible to
explain, on the basis of our train of thought, those extreme cases in which the dream,
continuing the work of the day, brings to a happy issue an unsolved problem of waking
life. We merely lack a suitable example to analyse, in order to uncover the infantile or
repressed source of wishes, the tapping of which has so successfully reinforced the efforts
of the preconscious activity. But we are not a step nearer to answering the question: Why
is it that the unconscious can furnish in sleep nothing more than the motive-power for a
wish-fulfilment? The answer to this question must elucidate the psychic nature of the
state of wishing: and it will be given with the aid of the notion of the psychic apparatus.
We do not doubt that this apparatus, too, has only arrived at its present perfection by a
long process of evolution. Let us attempt to restore it as it existed in an earlier stage of
capacity. From postulates to be confirmed in other ways we know that at first the
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apparatus strove to keep itself as free from stimulation as possible, and therefore, in its
early structure, adopted the arrangement of a reflex apparatus, which enabled it promptly
to discharge by the motor paths any sensory excitation reaching it from without. But this
simple function was disturbed by the exigencies of life, to which the apparatus owes the
impetus toward further development. The exigencies of life first confronted it in the form
of the great physical needs. The excitation aroused by the inner need seeks an outlet in
motility, which we may describe as `internal change' or `expression of the emotions'. The
hungry child cries or struggles helplessly. But its situation remains unchanged; for the
excitation proceeding from the inner need has not the character of a momentary impact,
but of a continuing pressure. A change can occur only if, in some way (in the case of the
child by external assistance), there is an experience of satisfaction, which puts an end to
the internal excitation. An essential constituent of this experience is the appearance of a
certain percept (of food in our example), the memory-image of which is henceforth
associated with the memory-trace of the excitation arising from the need. Thanks to the
established connection, there results, at the next occurrence of this need, a psychic
impulse which seeks to revive the memory-image of the former percept, and to re-evoke
the former percept itself; that is, it actually seeks to re-establish the situation of the first
satisfaction. Such an impulse is what we call a wish; the reappearance of the perception
constitutes the wish-fulfilment, and the full cathexis of the perception, by the excitation
springing from the need, constitutes the shortest path to the wish-fulfilment. We may
assume a primitive state of the psychic apparatus in which this path is actually followed,
i.e. in which the wish ends in hallucination. This first psychic activity therefore aims at an
identity of perception: that is, at a repetition of that perception which is connected with
the satisfaction of the need.
This primitive mental activity must have been modified by bitter practical experience into
a secondary and more appropriate activity. The establishment of identity of perception by
the short regressive path within the apparatus does not produce the same result in another
respect as follows upon cathexis of the same perception coming from without. The
satisfaction does not occur, and the need continues. In order to make the internal cathexis
equivalent to the external one, the former would have to be continuously sustained, just
as actually happens in the hallucinatory psychoses and in hunger-fantasies, which exhaust
their performance in maintaining their hold on the object desired. In order to attain to
more appropriate use of the psychic energy, it becomes necessary to suspend the full
regression, so that it does not proceed beyond the memory-image, and thence can seek
other paths, leading ultimately to the production of the desired identity from the side of
the outer world.4 This inhibition, as well as the subsequent deflection of the excitation,
becomes the task of a second system, which controls voluntary motility, i.e. a system
whose activity first leads on to the use of motility for purposes remembered in advance.
But all this complicated mental activity, which works its way from the memory-image to
the production of identity of perception via the outer world, merely represents a
roundabout way to wish-fulfilment made necessary by experience.5 Thinking is indeed
nothing but a substitute for the hallucinatory wish; and if the dream is called a wishfulfilment,
this becomes something self-evident, since nothing but a wish can impel our
psychic apparatus to activity.
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The dream, which fulfils its wishes by following the short regressive path, has thereby
simply preserved for us a specimen of the primary method of operation of the psychic
apparatus, which has been abandoned as inappropriate. What once prevailed in the
waking state, when our psychic life was still young and inefficient, seems to have been
banished into our nocturnal life; just as we still find in the nursery those discarded
primitive weapons of adult humanity, the bow and arrow. Dreaming is a fragment of the
superseded psychic life of the child. In the psychoses those modes of operation of the
psychic apparatus which are normally suppressed in the waking state reassert themselves,
and thereupon betray their inability to satisfy our demands in the outer world.6
The unconscious wish-impulses evidently strive to assert themselves even during the day,
and the fact of transference, as well as the psychoses, tells us that they endeavour to force
their way through the preconscious system to consciousness and the command of
motility. Thus, in the censorship between UCS. and PCS., which the dream forces us to
assume, we must recognise and respect the guardian of our psychic health. But is it not
carelessness on the part of this guardian to diminish his vigilance at night, and to allow
the suppressed impulses of the UCS. to achieve expression, thus again making possible
the process of hallucinatory regression? I think not, for when the critical guardian goes to
rest -- and we have proof that his slumber is not profound -- he takes care to close the
gate to motility. No matter what impulses from the usually inhibited UCS. may bustle
about the stage, there is no need to interfere with them; they remain harmless, because
they are not in a position to set in motion the motor apparatus which alone can operate to
produce any change in the outer world. Sleep guarantees the security of the fortress
which has to be guarded. The state of affairs is less harmless when a displacement of
energies is produced, not by the decline at night in the energy put forth by the critical
censorship, but by the pathological enfeeblement of the latter, or the pathological
reinforcement of the unconscious excitations, and this while the preconscious is cathected
and the gates of motility are open. The guardian is then overpowered; the unconscious
excitations subdue the PCS., and from the PCS. they dominate our speech and action, or
they enforce hallucinatory regressions, thus directing an apparatus not designed for them
by virtue of the attraction exerted by perceptions on the distribution of our psychic
energy. We call this condition psychosis.
We now find ourselves in the most favourable position for continuing the construction of
our psychological scaffolding, which we left after inserting the two systems, UCS. and
PCS. However, we still have reason to give further consideration to the wish as the sole
psychic motive-power in the dream. We have accepted the explanation that the reason
why the dream is in every case a wish-fulfilment is that it is a function of the system
UCS., which knows no other aim than wish-fulfilment, and which has at its disposal no
forces other than the wish-impulses. Now if we want to continue for a single moment
longer to maintain our right to develop such far-reaching psychological speculations from
the facts of dream-interpretation, we are in duty bound to show that they insert the dream
into a context which can also embrace other psychic structures. If there exists a system of
the UCS. -- or something sufficiently analogous for the purposes of our discussion -- the
dream cannot be its sole manifestation; every dream may be a wish-fulfilment, but there
must be other forms of abnormal wish-fulfilment as well as dreams. And in fact the
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theory of all psychoneurotic symptoms culminates in the one proposition that they, too,
must be conceived as wish-fulfilments of the unconscious.7 Our explanation makes the
dream only the first member of a series of the greatest importance for the psychiatrist, the
understanding of which means the solution of the purely psychological part of the
psychiatric problem.8 But in other members of this group of wish-fulfilments -- for
example, in the hysterical symptoms -- I know of one essential characteristic which I
have so far failed to find in the dream. Thus, from the investigations often alluded to in
this treatise, I know that the formation of a hysterical symptom needs a junction of both
the currents of our psychic life. The symptom is not merely the expression of a realised
unconscious wish; the latter must be joined by another wish from the preconscious, which
is fulfilled by the same symptom; so that the symptom is at least doubly determined, once
by each of the conflicting systems. Just as in dreams, there is no limit to further overdetermination.
The determination which does not derive from the UCS. is, as far as I can
see, invariably a thought-stream of reaction against the unconscious wish; for example, a
self-punishment. Hence I can say, quite generally, that a hysterical symptom originates
only where two contrary wish-fulfilments, having their source in different psychic
systems, are able to meet in a single expression.9 Examples would help us but little here,
as nothing but a complete unveiling of the complications in question can carry
conviction. I will therefore content myself with the bare assertion, and will cite one
example, not because it proves anything, but simply as an illustration. The hysterical
vomiting of a female patient proved, on the one hand, to be the fulfilment of an
unconscious fantasy from the years of puberty -- namely, the wish that she might be
continually pregnant, and have a multitude of children; and this was subsequently
supplemented by the wish that she might have them by as many fathers as possible.
Against this immoderate wish there arose a powerful defensive reaction. But as by the
vomiting the patient might have spoilt her figure and her beauty, so that she would no
longer find favour in any man's eyes, the symptom was also in keeping with the punitive
trend of thought, and so, being admissible on both sides, it was allowed to become a
reality. This is the same way of acceding to a wish-fulfilment as the queen of the
Parthians was pleased to adopt in the case of the triumvir Crassus. Believing that he had
undertaken his campaign out of greed for gold, she caused molten gold to be poured into
the throat of the corpse. `Here thou hast what thou hast longed for!'
Of the dream we know as yet only that it expresses a wish-fulfilment of the unconscious;
and apparently the dominant preconscious system permits this fulfilment when it has
compelled the wish to undergo certain distortions. We are, moreover, not in fact in a
position to demonstrate regularly the presence of a train of thought opposed to the dreamwish,
which is realised in the dream as well as its antagonist. Only now and then have we
found in dream-analyses signs of reaction-products as, for instance, my affection for my
friend R. in the `dream of my uncle' (p. 48). But the contribution from the preconscious
which is missing here may be found in another place. The dream can provide expression
for a wish from the UCS. by means of all sorts of distortions, once the dominant system
has withdrawn itself into the wish to sleep, and has realised this wish by producing the
changes of cathexis within the psychic apparatus which are within its power; thereupon
holding on to the wish in question for the whole duration of sleep.10
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Now this persistent wish to sleep on the part of the preconscious has a quite general
facilitating effect on the formation of dreams. Let us recall the dream of the father who,
by the gleam of light from the death-chamber, was led to conclude that his child's body
might have caught fire. We have shown that one of the psychic forces decisive in causing
the father to draw this conclusion in the dream instead of allowing himself to be
awakened by the gleam of light was the wish to prolong the life of the child seen in the
dream by one moment. Other wishes originating in the repressed have probably escaped
us, for we are unable to analyse this dream. But as a second source of motive power in
this dream we may add the father's desire to sleep, for, like the life of the child, the
father's sleep is prolonged for a moment by the dream. The underlying motive is: `Let the
dream go on, or I must wake up.' As in this dream, so in all others, the wish to sleep lends
its support to the unconscious wish. On page 35 we cited dreams which were manifestly
dreams of convenience. But in truth all dreams may claim this designation. The efficacy
of the wish to go on sleeping is most easily recognised in the awakening dreams, which
so elaborate the external sensory stimulus that it becomes compatible with the
continuance of sleep; they weave it into a dream in order to rob it of any claims it might
make as a reminder of the outer world. But this wish to go on sleeping must also play its
part in permitting all other dreams, which can only act as disturbers of the state of sleep
from within. `Don't worry; sleep on; it's only a dream', is in many cases the suggestion of
the PCS. to consciousness when the dream gets too bad; and this describes in a quite
general way the attitude of our dominant psychic activity towards dreaming, even though
the thought remains unuttered. I must draw the conclusion that throughout the whole of
our sleep we are just as certain that we are dreaming as we are certain that we are
sleeping. It is imperative to disregard the objection that our consciousness is never
directed to the latter knowledge, and that it is directed to the former knowledge only on
special occasions, when the censorship feels, as it were, taken by surprise. On the
contrary, there are persons in whom the retention at night of the knowledge that they are
sleeping and dreaming becomes quite manifest, and who are thus apparently endowed
with the conscious faculty of guiding their dream-life. Such a dreamer, for example, is
dissatisfied with the turn taken by a dream; he breaks it off without waking, and begins it
afresh, in order to continue it along different lines, just like a popular author who, upon
request, gives a happier ending to his play. Or on another occasion, when the dream
places him in a sexually exciting situation, he thinks in his sleep: `I don't want to continue
this dream and exhaust myself by an emission; I would rather save it for a real situation.'
The Marquis Hervey (Vaschide) declared that he had gained such power over his dreams
that he could accelerate their course at will, and turn them in any direction he wished. It
seems that in him the wish to sleep had accorded a place to another, a preconscious wish,
the wish to observe his dreams and to derive pleasure from them. Sleep is just as
compatible with such a wish-resolve as it is with some proviso as a condition of waking
up (wet-nurse's sleep). We know, too, that in all persons an interest in dreams greatly
increases the number of dreams remembered after waking.
Concerning other observations as to the guidance of dreams, Ferenczi states: `The dream
takes the thought that happens to occupy our psychic life at the moment, and elaborates it
from all sides. It lets any given dream-picture drop when there is a danger that the wishINTERPRETATION
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fulfilment will miscarry, and attempts a new kind of solution, until it finally succeeds in
creating a wish-fulfilment that satisfies in one compromise both-instances of the psychic
life.'
1 They share this character of indestructibility with all other psychic acts that are really
unconscious -- that is, with psychic acts belonging solely to the system Ucs. These paths
are opened once and for all; they never fall into disuse; they conduct the excitationprocess
to discharge as often as they are charged again with unconscious excitation. To
speak metaphorically, they suffer no other form of annihilation than did the shades of the
lower regions in the Odyssey, who awoke to new life the moment they drank blood. The
processes depending on the preconscious system are destructible in quite another sense.
The psychotherapy of the neuroses is based on this difference.
2 I have endeavoured to penetrate farther into the relations of the sleeping state and the
conditions of hallucination in my essay, Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of
Dreams. Collected Papers, vol. iv, p. 137 (Metapsychologische Ergänzung zur
Traumlehre. Int. Zeitschr. f. Ps. A. iv, 1916-18, Ges. Schriften, Bd. v. p. 520).
3 Here one may consider the idea of the super-ego which was later recognised by
psychoanalysis.
4 In other words: the introduction of a `test of reality' is recognised as necessary.
5 Le Lorrain justly extols the wish-fulfilments of dreams: `Sans fatigue sérieuse, sans être
obligé de recourir à cette lutte opiniâtre et longue qui use et corrode les jouissances
poursuivies.'
6 I have further elaborated this train of thought elsewhere, where I have distinguished the
two principles involved as the pleasure-principle and the reality-principle. `Formulations
regarding the Two Principles in Mental Functioning', Collected Papers, vol. iv, p. 13
(Formulierungen über die zwei Prinzipien des psychischen Geschehens in Ges. Schriften,
Bd. v, p. 409).
7 Expressed more exactly: One portion of the symptom corresponds to the unconscious
wish-fulfilment, while the other corresponds to the reaction-formation opposed to it.
8 Hughlings Jackson has expressed himself as follows: `Find out all about dreams, and
you will have found out all about insanity.'
9 cf. my latest formulation of the origin of hysterical symptoms in the treatise on
`Hysterical Fantasies and their Relation to Bisexuality', Collected Papers, vol. ii, p. 51
This forms Chapter X in the English edition of Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other
Psychoneuroses.
10 This idea has been borrowed from the theory of sleep of Liébault, who revived hypnotic
research in modern times (Du Sommeil provoqué, etc., Paris, 1889).
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D. WAKING CAUSED BY DREAMS, THE FUNCTION OF DREAMS, THE
ANXIETY-DREAM
Now that we know that throughout the night the preconscious is orientated to the wish to
sleep, we can follow the dream process with proper understanding. But let us first
summarise what we already know about this process. We have seen that day-residues are
left over from the waking activity of the mind, residues from which it has not been
possible to withdraw all cathexis. Either one of the unconscious wishes has been aroused
through the waking activity during the day or it so happens that the two coincide; we
have already discussed the multifarious possibilities. Either already during the day or
only on the establishment of the state of sleep the unconscious wish has made its way to
the day-residues, and has effected a transference to them. Thus there arises a wish
transferred to recent material; or the suppressed recent wish is revived by a reinforcement
from the unconscious. This wish now endeavours to make its way to consciousness along
the normal path of the thought processes, through the preconscious, to which indeed it
belongs by virtue of one of its constituent elements. It is, however, confronted by the
censorship which still subsists, and to whose influence it soon succumbs. It now takes on
the distortion for which the way has already been paved by the transference to recent
material. So far it is on the way to becoming something resembling an obsession, a
delusion, or the like, i.e. a thought reinforced by a transference, and distorted in
expression owing to the censorship. But its further progress is now checked by the state
of sleep of the preconscious; this system has presumably protected itself against invasion
by diminishing its excitations. The dream-process, therefore, takes the regressive course,
which is just opened up by the peculiarity of the sleeping state, and in so doing follows
the attraction exerted on it by memory-groups, which are, in part only, themselves present
as visual cathexis, not as translations into the symbols of the later systems. On its way to
regression it acquires representability. The subject of compression will be discussed later.
The dream-process has by this time covered the second part of its contorted course. The
first part threads its way progressively from the unconscious scenes or fantasies to the
preconscious, while the second part struggles back from the boundary of the censorship
to the tract of the perceptions. But when the dream-process becomes a perceptioncontent,
it has, so to speak, eluded the obstacle set up in the Pcs. by the censorship and
the sleeping state. It succeeds in drawing attention to itself, and in being remarked by
consciousness. For consciousness, which for us means a sense-organ for the apprehension
of psychic qualities, can be excited in waking life from two sources: firstly, from the
periphery of the whole apparatus, the perceptive system; and secondly, from the
excitations of pleasure and pain which emerge as the sole psychic qualities yielded by the
transpositions of energy in the interior of the apparatus. All other processes in the y-
systems, even those in the preconscious, are devoid of all psychic quality, and are
therefore not objects of consciousness, inasmuch as they do not provide either pleasure or
pain for its perception. We shall have to assume that these releases of pleasure and pain
automatically regulate the course of the cathectic processes. But in order to make
possible more delicate performances, it subsequently proved necessary to render the flow
of ideas more independent of pain-signals. To accomplish this, the Pcs. system needed
qualities of its own which could attract consciousness, and most probably received them
through the connection of the preconscious processes with the memory-system of speech
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symbols, which was not devoid of quality. Through the qualities of this system,
consciousness, hitherto only a sense-organ for perceptions, now becomes also a senseorgan
for a part of our thought-processes. There are now, as it were, two sensory
surfaces, one turned toward perception and the other toward the preconscious thoughtprocesses.
I must assume that the sensory surface of consciousness which is turned to the
preconscious is rendered far more unexcitable by sleep than the surface turned toward the
P-system. The giving up of interest in the nocturnal thought-process is, of course, an
appropriate procedure. Nothing is to happen in thought; the preconscious wants to sleep.
But once the dream becomes perception, it is capable of exciting consciousness through
the qualities now gained. The sensory excitation performs what is in fact its function;
namely, it directs a part of the cathectic energy available in the Pcs. to the exciting cause
in the form of attention. We must therefore admit that the dream always has a waking
effect -- that is, it calls into activity part of the quiescent energy of the Pcs. Under the
influence of this energy, it now undergoes the process which we have described as
secondary elaboration with a view to coherence and comprehensibility. This means that
the dream is treated by this energy like any other perception-content; it is subjected to the
same anticipatory ideas as far, at least, as the material allows. As far as this third part of
the dream-process has any direction, this is once more progressive.
To avoid misunderstanding, it will not be amiss to say a few words as to the temporal
characteristics of these dream-processes. In a very interesting discussion, evidently
suggested by Maury's puzzling guillotine dream, Goblot tries to demonstrate that a dream
takes up no other time than the transition period between sleeping and waking. The
process of waking up requires time; during this time the dream occurs. It is supposed that
the final picture of the dream is so vivid that it forces the dreamer to wake; in reality it is
so vivid only because when it appears the dreamer is already very near waking. `Un rêve,
c'est un réveil qui commence.'
It has already been pointed out by Dugas that Goblot, in order to generalise his theory,
was forced to ignore a great many facts. There are also dreams from which we do not
awaken; for example, many dreams in which we dream that we dream. From our
knowledge of the dream-work, we can by no means admit that it extends only over the
period of waking. On the contrary, we must consider it probable that the first part of the
dream-work is already begun during the day, when we are still under the domination of
the preconscious. The second phase of the dream-work, viz. the alteration by the
censorship, the attraction exercised by unconscious scenes, and the penetration to
perception, continues probably all through the night, and accordingly we may always be
correct when we report a feeling that we have been dreaming all night, even although we
cannot say what we have dreamed. I do not, however, think that it is necessary to assume
that up to the time of becoming conscious the dream-processes really follow the temporal
sequence which we have described; viz. that there is first the transferred dream-wish,
then the process of distortion due to the censorship, and then the change of direction to
regression, etc. We were obliged to construct such a sequence for the sake of description;
in reality, however, it is probably rather a question of simultaneously trying this path and
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that, and of the excitation fluctuating to and fro, until finally, because it has attained the
most apposite concentration, one particular grouping remains in the field. Certain
personal experiences even incline me to believe that the dream-work often requires more
than one day and one night to produce its result, in which case the extraordinary art
manifested in the construction of the dream is shorn of its miraculous character. In my
opinion, even the regard for the comprehensibility of the dream as a perceptual event may
exert its influence before the dream attracts consciousness to itself. From this point,
however, the process is accelerated, since the dream is henceforth subjected to the same
treatment as any other perception. It is like fireworks, which require hours for their
preparation and then flare up in a moment.
Through the dream-work, the dream-process now either gains sufficient intensity to
attract consciousness to itself and to arouse the preconscious (quite independently of the
time or profundity of sleep), or its intensity is insufficient, and it must wait in readiness
until attention, becoming more alert immediately before waking, meets it half-way. Most
dreams seem to operate with relatively slight psychic intensities, for they wait for the
process of waking. This, then, explains the fact that as a rule we perceive something
dreamed if we are suddenly roused from a deep sleep. Here, as well as in spontaneous
waking, our first glance lights upon the perception-content created by the dream-work,
while the next falls on that provided by the outer world.
But of greater theoretical interest are those dreams which are capable of waking us in the
midst of our sleep. We may bear in mind the purposefulness which can be demonstrated
in all other cases, and ask ourselves why the dream, that is, the unconscious wish, is
granted the power to disturb our sleep, i.e. the fulfilment of the preconscious wish. The
explanation is probably to be found in certain relations of energy which we do not yet
understand. If we did so, we should probably find that the freedom given to the dream
and the expenditure upon it of a certain detached attention represent a saving of energy as
against the alternative case of the unconscious having to be held in check at night just as
it is during the day. As experience shows, dreaming, even if it interrupts our sleep several
times a night, still remains compatible with sleep. We wake up for a moment, and
immediately fall asleep again. It is like driving off a fly in our sleep; we awake ad hoc.
When we fall asleep again we have removed the cause of disturbance. The familiar
examples of the sleep of wet-nurses, etc., show that the fulfilment of the wish to sleep is
quite compatible with the maintenance of a certain amount of attention in a given
direction.
But we must here take note of an objection which is based on a greater knowledge of the
unconscious processes. We have ourselves described the unconscious wishes as always
active, whilst nevertheless asserting that in the daytime they are not strong enough to
make themselves perceptible. But when the state of sleep supervenes, and the
unconscious wish has shown its power to form a dream, and with it to awaken the
preconscious, why does this power lapse after cognisance has been taken of the dream?
Would it not seem more probable that the dream should continually renew itself, like the
disturbing fly which, when driven away, takes pleasure in returning again and again?
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What justification have we for our assertion that the dream removes the disturbance to
sleep?
It is quite true that the unconscious wishes are always active. They represent paths which
are always practicable, whenever a quantum of excitation makes use of them. It is indeed
an outstanding peculiarity of the unconscious processes that they are indestructible.
Nothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious; nothing is past or forgotten. This is
impressed upon us emphatically in the study of the neuroses, and especially of hysteria.
The unconscious path of thought which leads to the discharge through an attack is
forthwith passable again when there is a sufficient accumulation of excitation. The
mortification suffered thirty years ago operates, after having gained access to the
unconscious sources of affect, during all these thirty years as though it were a recent
experience. Whenever its memory is touched, it revives, and shows itself to be cathected
with excitation which procures a motor discharge for itself in an attack. It is precisely
here that psychotherapy must intervene, its task being to ensure that the unconscious
processes are settled and forgotten. Indeed, the fading of memories and the weak affect of
impressions which are no longer recent, which we are apt to take as self-evident, and to
explain as a primary effect of time on our psychic memory-residues, are in reality
secondary changes brought about by laborious work. It is the preconscious that
accomplishes this work; and the only course which psychotherapy can pursue is to bring
the Ucs. under the dominion of the Pcs.
There are, therefore, two possible issues for any single unconscious excitation-process.
Either it is left to itself, in which case it ultimately breaks through somewhere and
secures, on this one occasion, a discharge for its excitation into motility, or it succumbs to
the influence of the preconscious, and through this its excitation becomes bound instead
of being discharged. It is the latter case that occurs in the dream-process. The cathexis
from the Pcs. which goes to meet the dream once this has attained to perception, because
it has been drawn thither by the excitation of consciousness, binds the unconscious
excitation of the dream and renders it harmless as a disturber of sleep. When the dreamer
wakes up for a moment, he has really chased away the fly that threatened to disturb his
sleep. We may now begin to suspect that it is really more expedient and economical to
give way to the unconscious wish, to leave clear its path to regression so that it may form
a dream, and then to bind and dispose of this dream by means of a small outlay of
preconscious work, than to hold the unconscious in check throughout the whole period of
sleep. It was, indeed, to be expected that the dream, even if originally it was not a
purposeful process, would have seized upon some definite function in the play of forces
of the psychic life. We now see what this function is. The dream has taken over the task
of bringing the excitation of the Ucs., which had been left free, back under the
domination of the preconscious; it thus discharges the excitation of the Ucs., acts as a
safety-valve for the latter, and at the same time, by a slight outlay of waking activity,
secures the sleep of the preconscious. Thus, like the other psychic formations of its
group, the dream offers itself as a compromise, serving both systems simultaneously, by
fulfilling the wishes of both, in so far as they are mutually compatible. A glance at
Robert's `elimination theory' will show that we must agree with this author on his main
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point, namely, the determination of the function of dreams, though we differ from him in
our general presuppositions and in our estimation of the dream-process.1
The above qualification -- in so far as the two wishes are mutually compatible -- contains
a suggestion that there may be cases in which the function of the dream fails. The dreamprocess
is, to begin with, admitted as a wish-fulfilment of the unconscious, but if this
attempted wish-fulfilment disturbs the preconscious so profoundly that the latter can no
longer maintain its state of rest, the dream has broken the compromise, and has failed to
perform the second part of its task. It is then at once broken off, and replaced by complete
awakening. But even here it is not really the fault of the dream if, though at other times
the guardian, it has now to appear as the disturber of sleep, nor need this prejudice us
against its averred purposive character. This is not the only instance in the organism in
which a contrivance that is usually to the purpose becomes inappropriate and disturbing
so soon as something is altered in the conditions which engender it; the disturbance, then,
at all events serves the new purpose of indicating the change, and of bringing into play
against it the means of adjustment of the organism. Here, of course, I am thinking of the
anxiety-dream, and lest it should seem that I try to evade this witness against the theory
of wish-fulfilment whenever I encounter it, I will at least give some indications as to the
explanation of the anxiety-dream.
That a psychic process which develops anxiety may still be a wish-fulfilment has long
ceased to imply any contradiction for us. We may explain this occurrence by the fact that
the wish belongs to one system (the Ucs.), whereas the other system (the Pcs.) has
rejected and suppressed it.2 The subjection of the Ucs. by the Pcs. is not thoroughgoing
even in perfect psychic health; the extent of this suppression indicates the degree of our
psychic normality. Neurotic symptoms indicate to us that the two systems are in mutual
conflict; the symptoms are the result of a compromise in this conflict, and they
temporarily put an end to it. On the one hand they afford the Ucs. a way out for the
discharge of its excitation -- they serve it as a kind of sally-gate -- while, on the other
hand, they give the Pcs. the possibility of dominating the Ucs. in some degree. It is
instructive to consider, for example, the significance of a hysterical phobia, or of
agoraphobia. A neurotic is said to be incapable of crossing the street alone, and this we
should rightly call a `symptom'. Let someone now remove this symptom by constraining
him to this action which he deems himself incapable of performing. The result will be an
attack of anxiety, just as an attack of anxiety in the street has often been the exciting
cause of the establishment of an agoraphobia. We thus learn that the symptom has been
constituted in ord