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F. THE UNCONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUSNESS; REALITY
If we look more closely, we may observe that the psychological considerations
examined
in the foregoing chapter require us to assume, not the existence of two systems
near the
motor end of the psychic apparatus, but two kinds of processes or courses taken
by
excitation. But this does not disturb us; for we must always be ready to drop
our auxiliary
ideas, when we think we are in a position to replace them by something which
comes
closer to the unknown reality. Let us now try to correct certain views which may
have
taken a misconceived form as long as we regarded the two systems, in the crudest
and
most obvious sense, as two localities within the psychic apparatus -- views
which have
left a precipitate in the terms `repression' and `penetration'. Thus, when we
say that an
unconscious thought strives for translation into the preconscious in order
subsequently to
penetrate through to consciousness, we do not mean that a second idea has to be
formed,
in a new locality, like a paraphrase, as it were, whilst the original persists
by its side; and
similarly, when we speak of penetration into consciousness, we wish carefully to
detach
from this notion any idea of a change of locality. When we say that a
preconscious idea is
repressed and subsequently absorbed by the unconscious, we might be tempted by
these
images, borrowed from the idea of a struggle for a particular territory, to
assume that an
arrangement is really broken up in the one psychic locality and replaced by a
new one in
the other locality. For these comparisons we will substitute a description which
would
seem to correspond more closely to the real state of affairs; we will say that
an energic
cathexis is shifted to or withdrawn from a certain arrangement, so that the
psychic
formation falls under the domination of a given instance or is withdrawn from
it. Here
again we replace a topographical mode of representation by a dynamic one; it is
not the
psychic formation that appears to us as the mobile element, but its
innervation.1
Nevertheless, I think it expedient and justifiable to continue to use the
illustrative idea of
the two systems. We shall avoid any abuse of this mode of representation if we
remember
that ideas, thoughts, and psychic formations in general must not in any case be
localised
in organic elements of the nervous system but, so to speak, between them, where
resistances and association-tracks form the correlate corresponding to them.
Everything
that can become an object of internal perception is virtual, like the image in
the telescope
produced by the crossing of light-rays. But we are justified in thinking of the
systems --
which have nothing psychic in themselves, and which never become accessible to
our
psychic perception -- as something similar to the lenses of the telescope, which
project
the image. If we continue this comparison, we might say that the censorship
between the
two systems corresponds to the refraction of rays on passing into a new medium.
Thus far, we have developed our psychology on our own responsibility; it is now
time to
turn and look at the doctrines prevailing in modern psychology, and to examine
the
relation of these to our theories. The problem of the unconscious in psychology
is,
according to the forcible statement of Lipps,2 less a psychological problem than
the
problem of psychology. As long as psychology disposed of this problem by the
verbal
explanation that the `psychic' is the `conscious', and that `unconscious psychic
occurrences' are an obvious contradiction, there was no possibility of a
physician's
observations of abnormal mental states being turned to any psychological
account. The
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physician and the philosopher can meet only when both acknowledge that
`unconscious
psychic processes' is `the appropriate and justified expression for an
established fact.' The
physician cannot but reject, with a shrug of his shoulders, the assertion that
`consciousness is the indispensable quality of the psychic'; if his respect for
the utterances
of the philosophers is still great enough, he may perhaps assume that he and
they do not
deal with the same thing and do not pursue the same science. For a single
intelligent
observation of the psychic life of a neurotic, a single analysis of a dream,
must force upon
him the unshakable conviction that the most complicated and the most accurate
operations of thought, to which the name of psychic occurrences can surely not
be
refused, may take place without arousing consciousness.3 The physician, it is
true, does
not learn of these unconscious processes until they have produced an effect on
consciousness which admits of communication or observation. But this effect on
consciousness may show a psychic character which differs completely from the
unconscious process, so that internal perception cannot possibly recognise in
the first a
substitute for the second. The physician must reserve himself the right to
penetrate, by a
process of deduction, from the effect on consciousness to the unconscious
psychic
process; he learns in this way that the effect on consciousness is only a remote
psychic
product of the unconscious process, and that the latter has not become conscious
as such,
and has, moreover, existed and operated without in any way betraying itself to
consciousness.
A return from the overestimation of the property of consciousness is the
indispensable
preliminary to any genuine insight into the course of psychic events. As Lipps
has said,
the unconscious must be accepted as the general basis of the psychic life. The
unconscious is the larger circle which includes the smaller circle of the
conscious;
everything conscious has a preliminary unconscious stage, whereas the
unconscious can
stop at this stage, and yet claim to be considered a full psychic function. The
unconscious
is the true psychic reality; in its inner nature it is just as much unknown to
us as the
reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly communicated to us
by the data
of consciousness as is the external world by the reports of our sense organs.
We get rid of a series of dream-problems which have claimed much attention from
earlier
writers on the subject when the old antithesis between conscious life and
dream-life is
discarded, and the unconscious psychic assigned to its proper place. Thus, many
of the
achievements which are a matter for wonder in a dream are now no longer to be
attributed to dreaming, but to unconscious thinking, which is active also during
the day.
If the dream seems to make play with a symbolical representation of the body, as
Scherner has said, we know that this is the work of certain unconscious
fantasies, which
are probably under the sway of sexual impulses and find expression not only in
dreams,
but also in hysterical phobias and other symptoms. If the dream continues and
completes
mental work begun during the day, and even brings valuable new ideas to light,
we have
only to strip off the dream-disguise from this, as the contribution of the
dream-work, and
a mark of the assistance of dark powers in the depths of the psyche (cf. the
devil in
Tartini's sonata-dream). The intellectual achievement as such belongs to the
same psychic
forces as are responsible for all such achievements during the day. We are
probably much
too inclined to overestimate the conscious character even of intellectual and
artistic
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production. From the reports of certain writers who have been highly productive,
such as
Goethe and Helmholtz, we learn, rather, that the most essential and original
part of their
creations came to them in the form of inspirations, and offered itself to their
awareness in
an almost completed state. In other cases, where there is a concerted effort of
all the
psychic forces, there is nothing strange in the fact that conscious activity,
too, lends its
aid. But it is the much-abused privilege of conscious activity to hide from us
all other
activities wherever it participates.
It hardly seems worth while to take up the historical significance of dreams as
a separate
theme. Where, for instance, a leader has been impelled by a dream to engage in a
bold
undertaking, the success of which has had the effect of changing history, a new
problem
arises only so long as the dream is regarded as a mysterious power and
contrasted with
other more familiar psychic forces. The problem disappears as soon as we regard
the
dream as a form of expression for impulses to which a resistance was attached
during the
day, whilst at night they were able to draw reinforcement from deep-lying
sources of
excitation.4 But the great respect with which the ancient peoples regarded
dreams is based
on a just piece of psychological divination. It is a homage paid to the
unsubdued and
indestructible element in the human soul, to the daemonic power which furnishes
the
dream-wish, and which we have found again in our unconscious.
It is not without purpose that I use the expression in our unconscious, for what
we so call
does not coincide with the unconscious of the philosophers, nor with the
unconscious of
Lipps. As they use the term, it merely means the opposite of the conscious. That
there
exist not only conscious but also unconscious psychic processes is the opinion
at issue,
which is so hotly contested and so energetically defended. Lipps enunciates the
more
comprehensive doctrine that everything psychic exists as unconscious, but that
some of it
may exist also as conscious. But it is not to prove this doctrine that we have
adduced the
phenomena of dreams and hysterical symptom-formation; the observation of normal
life
alone suffices to establish its correctness beyond a doubt. The novel fact that
we havé
learned from the analysis of psycho-pathological formations, and indeed from the
first
member of the group, from dreams, is that the unconscious -- and hence all that
is psychic
-- occurs as a function of two separate systems, and that as such it occurs even
in normal
psychic life. There are consequently two kinds of unconscious, which have not as
yet
been distinguished by psychologists. Both are unconscious in the psychological
sense;
but in our sense the first, which we call Ucs., is likewise incapable of
consciousness;
whereas the second we call Pcs. because its excitations, after the observance of
certain
rules, are capable of reaching consciousness; perhaps not before they have again
undergone censorship, but nevertheless regardless of the Ucs. system. The fact
that in
order to attain consciousness the excitations must pass through an unalterable
series, a
succession of instances, as is betrayed by the changes produced in them by the
censorship, has enabled us to describe them by analogy in spatial terms. We
described the
relations of the two systems to each other and to consciousness by saying that
the system
Pcs. is like a screen between the system Ucs. and consciousness. The system Pcs.
not
only bars access to consciousness, but also controls the access to voluntary
motility, and
has control of the emission of a mobile cathectic energy, a portion of which is
familiar to
us as attention.5
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We must also steer clear of the distinction between the superconscious and the
subconscious, which has found such favour in the more recent literature on the
psychoneuroses, for just such a distinction seems to emphasise the equivalence
of what is
psychic and what is conscious.
What role is now left, in our representation of things, to the phenomenon of
consciousness, once so all-powerful and overshadowing all else? None other than
that of
a sense-organ for the perception of psychic qualities. According to the
fundamental idea
of our schematic attempt we can regard conscious perception only as the function
proper
to a special system for which the abbreviated designation Cs. commends itself.
This
system we conceive to be similar in its mechanical characteristics to the
perceptionsystem
P, and hence excitable by qualities, and incapable of retaining the trace of
changes: i.e. devoid of memory. The psychic apparatus which, with the
sense-organ of
the P-systems, is turned to the outer world, is itself the outer world for the
sense-organ of
Cs., whose teleological justification depends on this relationship. We are here
once more
confronted with the principle of the succession of instances which seems to
dominate the
structure of the apparatus. The material of excitation flows to the sense-organ
Cs. from
two sides: first from the P-system, whose excitation, qualitatively conditioned,
probably
undergoes a new elaboration until it attains conscious perception; and,
secondly, from the
interior of the apparatus itself, whose quantitative processes are perceived as
a qualitative
series of pleasures and pains once they have reached consciousness after
undergoing
certain changes.
The philosophers, who became aware that accurate and highly complicated
thoughtstructures
are possible even without the co-operation of consciousness, thus found it
difficult to ascribe any function to consciousness; it appeared to them a
superfluous
mirroring of the completed psychic process. The analogy of our Cs. system with
the
perception-systems relieves us of this embarrassment. We see that perception
through our
sense organs results in directing an attention-cathexis to the paths along which
the
incoming sensory excitation diffuses itself; the qualitative excitation of the
P-system
serves the mobile quantity in the psychic apparatus as a regulator of its
discharge. We
may claim the same function for the overlying sense organ of the Cs. system. By
perceiving new qualities, it furnishes a new contribution for the guidance and
suitable
distribution of the mobile cathexisquantities. By means of perceptions of
pleasure and
pain, it influences the course of the cathexes within the psychic apparatus,
which
otherwise operates unconsciously and by the displacement of quantities. It, is
probable
that the pain-principle first of all regulates the displacements of cathexis
automatically,
but it is quite possible that consciousness contributes a second and more subtle
regulation
of these qualities, which may even oppose the first, and perfect the functional
capacity of
the apparatus, by placing it in a position contrary to its original design,
subjecting even
that which induces pain to cathexis and to elaboration. We learn from
neuro-psychology
that an important part in the functional activity of the apparatus is ascribed
to these
regulations by the qualitative excitations of the sense-organs. The automatic
rule of the
primary pain-principle, together with the limitation of functional capacity
bound up with
it, is broken by the sensory regulations, which are themselves again
automatisms. We
find that repression, which, though originally expedient, nevertheless finally
brings about
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a harmful lack of inhibition and of psychic control, overtakes memories much
more
easily than it does perceptions, because in the former there is no additional
cathexis from
the excitation of the psychic sense-organs. Whilst an idea which is to be warded
off may
fail to become conscious because it has succumbed to repression, it may on other
occasions come to be repressed simply because it has been withdrawn from
conscious
perception on other grounds. These are clues which we make use of in therapy in
order to
undo accomplished repressions.
The value of the hyper-cathexis which is produced by the regulating influence of
the Cs.
sense-organs on the mobile quantity is demonstrated in a teleological context by
nothing
more clearly than by the creation of a new series of qualities, and consequently
a new
regulation, which constitutes the prerogative of man over the animals. For the
mental
procèsses are in themselves unqualitative except for the excitations of pleasure
and pain
which accompany them: which, as we know, must be kept within limits as possible
disturbers of thought. In order to endow them with quality, they are associated
in man
with verbal memories, the qualitative residues of which suffice to draw upon
them the
attention of consciousness, which in turn endows thought with a new mobile
cathexis.
It is only on a dissection of hysterical mental processes that the manifold
nature of the
problems of consciousness becomes apparent. One then receives the impression
that the
transition from the preconscious to the conscious cathexis is associated with a
censorship
similar to that between Ucs. and Pcs. This censorship, too, begins to act only
when a
certain quantitative limit is reached, so that thought-formations which are not
very
intense escape it. All possible cases of detention from consciousness and of
penetration
into consciousness under certain restrictions are included within the range of
psychoneurotic phenomena; all point to the intimate and twofold connection
between the
censorship and consciousness. I shall conclude these psychological
considerations with
the record of two such occurrences.
On the occasion of a consultation a few years ago, the patient was an
intelligent-looking
girl with a simple, unaffected manner. She was strangely attired; for whereas a
woman's
dress is usually carefully thought out to the last pleat, one of her stockings
was hanging
down and two of the buttons of her blouse were undone. She complained of pains
in one
of her legs, and exposed her calf without being asked to do so. Her chief
complaint,
however, was as follows: She had a feeling in her body as though something were
sticking into it which moved to and fro and shook her through and through. This
sometimes seemed to make her whole body stiff. On hearing this, my colleague in
consultation looked at me; the trouble was quite obvious to him. To both of us
it seemed
peculiar that this suggested nothing to the patient's mother, though she herself
must
repeatedly have been in the situation described by her child. As for the girl,
she had no
idea of the import of her words, or she would never have allowed them to pass
her lips.
Here the censorship had been hoodwinked so successfully that under the mask of
an
innocent complaint a fantasy was admitted to consciousness which otherwise would
have
remained in the preconscious.
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Another example: I began the psychoanalytic treatment of a boy of fourteen who
was
suffering from tic convulsif, hysterical vomiting, headache, etc., by assuring
him that
after closing his eyes he would see pictures or that ideas would occur to him,
which he
was to communicate to me. He replied by describing pictures. The last impression
he had
received before coming to me was revived visually in his memory. He had been
playing a
game of checkers with his uncle, and now he saw the checkerboard before him. He
commented on various positions that were favourable or unfavourable, on moves
that
were not safe to make. He then saw a dagger lying on the checkerboard -- an
object
belonging to his father, but which his fantasy laid on the checkerboard. Then a
sickle was
lying on the board; a scythe was added; and finally, he saw the image of an old
peasant
mowing the grass in front of his father's house far away. A few days later I
discovered the
meaning of this series of pictures. Disagreeable family circumstances had made
the boy
excited and nervous. Here was a case of a harsh, irascible father, who had lived
unhappily
with the boy's mother, and whose educational methods consisted of threats; he
had
divorced his gentle and delicate wife, and remarried; one day he brought home a
young
woman as the boy's new mother. The illness of the fourteen-year-old boy
developed a
few days later. It was the suppressed rage against his father that had combined
these
images into intelligible allusions. The material was furnished by a mythological
reminiscence. The sickle was that with which Zeus castrated his father; the
scythe and the
image of the peasant represented Kronos, the violent old man who devours his
children,
and upon whom Zeus wreaks his vengeance in so unfilial a manner. The father's
marriage
gave the boy an opportunity of returning the reproaches and threats which the
child had
once heard his father utter because he played with his genitals (the
draughtboard; the
prohibited moves; the dagger with which one could kill). We have here
long-impressed
memories and their unconscious derivatives which, under the guise of meaningless
pictures, have slipped into consciousness by the devious paths opened to them.
If I were asked what is the theoretical value of the study of dreams, I should
reply that it
lies in the additions to psychological knowledge and the beginnings of an
understanding
of the neuroses which we thereby obtain. Who can foresee the importance a
thorough
knowledge of the structure and functions of the psychic apparatus may attain,
when even
our present state of knowledge permits of successful therapeutic intervention in
the
curable forms of the psychoneuroses? But, it may be asked, what of the practical
value of
this study in regard to a knowledge of the psyche and discovery of the hidden
peculiarities of individual character? Have not the unconscious impulses
revealed by
dreams the value of real forces in the psychic life? Is the ethical significance
of the
suppressed wishes to be lightly disregarded, since, just as they now create
dreams, they
may some day create other things?
I do not feel justified in answering these questions. I have not followed up
this aspect of
the problem of dreams. In any case, however, I believe that the Roman Emperor
was in
the wrong in ordering one of his subjects to be executed because the latter had
dreamt
that he had killed the Emperor. He should first of all have endeavoured to
discover the
significance of the man's dream; most probably it was not what it seemed to be.
And even
if a dream of a different content had actually had this treasonable meaning, it
would still
have been well to recall the words of Plato -- that the virtuous man contents
himself with
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dreaming of that which the wicked man does in actual life. I am therefore of the
opinion
that dreams should be acquitted of evil. Whether any reality is to be attributed
to the
unconscious wishes, I cannot say. Reality must, of course, be denied to all
transitory and
intermediate thoughts. If we had before us the unconscious wishes, brought to
their final
and truest expression, we should still do well to remember that psychic reality
is a special
form of existence which must not be confounded with material reality. It seems,
therefore, unnecessary that people should refuse to accept the responsibility
for the
immorality of their dreams. With an appreciation of the mode of functioning of
the
psychic apparatus, and an insight into the relations between conscious and
unconscious,
all that is ethically offensive in our dream-life and the life of fantasy for
the most part
disappears.
`What a dream has told us of our relations to the present (reality) we will then
seek also
in our consciousness, and we must not be surprised if we discover that the
monster we
saw under the magnifying-glass of the analysis is a tiny little infusorian' (H.
Sachs).
For all practical purposes in judging human character, a man's actions and
conscious
expressions of thought are in most cases sufficient. Actions, above all, deserve
to be
placed in the front rank; for many impulses which penetrate into consciousness
are
neutralised by real forces in the psychic life before they find issue in action;
indeed, the
reason why they frequently do not encounter any psychic obstacle on their path
is
because the unconscious is certain of their meeting with resistance later. In
any case, it is
highly instructive to learn something of the intensively tilled soil from which
our virtues
proudly emerge. For the complexity of human character, dynamically moved in all
directions, very rarely accommodates itself to the arbitrament of a simple
alternative, as
our antiquated moral philosophy would have it.
And what of the value of dreams in regard to our knowledge of the future? That,
of
course, is quite out of the question. One would like to substitute the words:
`in regard to
our knowledge of the past.' For in every sense a dream has its origin in the
past. The
ancient belief that dreams reveal the future is not indeed entirely devoid of
truth. By
representing a wish as fulfilled the dream certainly leads us into the future;
but this
future, which the dreamer accepts as his present, has been shaped in the
likeness of the
past by the indestructible wish.
1 This conception underwent elaboration and modification when it was recognised
that the
essential character of a preconscious idea was its connection with the residues
of verbal
ideas (The Unconscious, Collected Papers, vol. iv, p. 98).
2 Der Begriff des Unbewussten in der Psychologie. Lecture delivered at the Third
International Psychological Congress at Munich, 1897.
3 I am happy to be able to point to an author who has drawn from the study of
dreams the
same conclusion as regards the relation between consciousness and the
unconscious. Du
Prel says: `The problem: what is the psyche, manifestly requires a preliminary
examination as to whether consciousness and psyche are identical. But it is just
this
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preliminary question which is answered in the negative by the dream, which shows
that
the concept of the psyche extends beyond that of consciousness, much as the
gravitational
force of a star extends beyond its sphere of luminosity' (Philos. d. Mystik, p.
47). `It is a
truth which cannot be sufficiently emphasised that the concepts of consciousness
and of
the psyche are not co-extensive' (p. 306).
4 cf. here the dream (Sa-tnroV) of Alexander the Great at the siege of Tyre (p.
13, note 4).
5 Cf. here my remarks in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,
vol. xxvi,
in which the descriptive, dynamic and systematic meanings of the ambiguous word
`unconscious' are distinguished from one another.
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