“As for the first, who could not confirm from his own experience that,
in the creations and weavings of the genius of the dream, there
sometimes comes to light a profundity and sincerity of emotion, a
tenderness of feeling, a clearness of view, a fineness of observation,
and a readiness of wit, all which we should modestly have to deny that
we possess as a constant property during the waking life? The dream has
a wonderful poetry, an excellent allegory, an incomparable humour, and a
charming irony. It views the world under the guise of a peculiar
idealisation, and often raises the effect of its manifestations into the
most ingenious understanding of the essence lying at its basis. It
represents for us earthly beauty in true heavenly radiance, the sublime
in the highest majesty, the actually frightful in the most gruesome
figure, and the ridiculous in the indescribably drastic comical; and at
times we are so full of one of these impressions after awakening that we
imagine that such a thing has never been offered to us by the real
world.”

One may ask, is it really the same object that the depreciating remarks
and these inspired praises are meant for? Have the latter overlooked the
stupid dreams and the former the thoughtful and ingenious dreams? And if
both kinds do occur—that is, dreams that merit to be judged in this or
that manner—does it not seem idle to seek the psychological character of
the dream? Would it not suffice to state that everything is possible in
the dream, from the lowest depreciation of the psychic life to a raising
of the same which is unusual in the waking state? As convenient as this
solution would be it has this against it, that behind the efforts of all
dream investigators, it seems to be presupposed that there is such a
definable character of the dream, which is universally valid in its
essential features and which must eliminate these contradictions.

It is unquestionable that the psychic capacities of the dream have found
quicker and warmer recognition in that intellectual period which now
lies behind us, when philosophy rather than exact natural science ruled
intelligent minds. Utterances like those of Schubert, that the dream
frees the mind from the power of outer nature, that it liberates the
soul from the chains of the sensual, and similar opinions expressed by
the younger Fichte,[M] and others, who represent the dream as a soaring
up of the psychic life to a higher stage, hardly seem conceivable to us
to-day; they are only repeated at present by mystics and devotees. With
the advance of the scientific mode of thinking, a reaction took place in
the estimation of the dream. It is really the medical authors who are
most prone to underrate the psychic activity in the dream, as being
insignificant and invaluable, whereas, philosophers and unprofessional
observers—amateur psychologists—whose contributions in this realm can
surely not be overlooked, in better agreement with the popular ideas,
have mostly adhered to the psychic value of the dream. He who is
inclined to underrate the psychic capacity in the dream prefers, as a
matter of course, the somatic exciting sources in the etiology of the
dream; he who leaves to the dreaming mind the greater part of its
capacities, naturally has no reason for not also admitting independent
stimuli for dreaming.

Among the superior activities which, even on sober comparison, one is
tempted to ascribe to the dream life, memory is the most striking; we
have fully discussed the frequent experiences which prove this fact.
Another superiority of the dream life, frequently extolled by the old
authors, viz. that it can regard itself supreme in reference to distance
of time and space, can be readily recognised as an illusion. This
superiority, as observed by Hildebrandt,[35] is only illusional; the
dream takes as much heed of time and space as the waking thought, and
this because it is only a form of thinking. The dream is supposed to
enjoy still another advantage in reference to time; that is, it is
independent in still another sense of the passage of time. Dreams like
the guillotine dream of Maury,[48] reported above, seem to show that the
dream can crowd together more perception content in a very short space
of time than can be controlled by our psychic activity in the waking
mind. These conclusions have been controverted, however, by many
arguments; the essays of Le Lorrain[45] and Egger[20] “Concerning the
apparent duration of dreams” gave rise to a long and interesting
discussion which has probably not said the last word upon this delicate
and far-reaching question.

That the dream has the ability to take up the intellectual work of the
day and bring to a conclusion what has not been settled during the day,
that it can solve doubt and problems, and that it may become the source
of new inspiration in poets and composers, seems to be indisputable, as
is shown by many reports and by the collection compiled by
Chabaneix.[11] But even if there be no dispute as to the facts,
nevertheless their interpretation is open in principle to a great many
doubts.

Finally the asserted divinatory power of the dream forms an object of
contention in which hard unsurmountable reflection encounters obstinate
and continued faith. It is indeed just that we should refrain from
denying all that is based on fact in this subject, as there is a
possibility that a number of such cases may perhaps be explained on a
natural psychological basis.

(_f_) _The Ethical Feelings in the Dream._—For reasons which will be
understood only after cognisance has been taken of my own investigations
of the dream, I have separated from the psychology of the dream the
partial problem whether and to what extent the moral dispositions and
feelings of the waking life extend into the dreams. The same
contradictions which we were surprised to observe in the authors’
descriptions of all the other psychic capacities strike us again here.
Some affirm decidedly that the dream knows nothing of moral obligations;
others as decidedly that the moral nature of man remains even in his
dream life.

A reference to our dream experience of every night seems to raise the
correctness of the first assertion beyond doubt. Jessen[36] says (p.
553): “Nor does one become better or more virtuous in the dream; on the
contrary, it seems that conscience is silent in the dream, inasmuch as
one feels no compassion and can commit the worst crimes, such as theft,
murder, and assassination, with perfect indifference and without
subsequent remorse.”

Radestock[54] (p. 146) says: “It is to be noticed that in the dream the
associations terminate and the ideas unite without being influenced by
reflection and reason, æsthetic taste, and moral judgment; the judgment
is extremely weak, and ethical indifference reigns supreme.”

Volkelt[72] (p. 23) expresses himself as follows: “As every one knows,
the sexual relationship in the dream is especially unbridled. Just as
the dreamer himself is shameless in the extreme, and wholly lacking
moral feeling and judgment, so also he sees others, even the most
honoured persons, engaged in actions which even in thought he would
blush to associate with them in his waking state.”

Utterances like those of Schopenhauer, that in the dream every person
acts and talks in accordance with his character, form the sharpest
contrast to those mentioned above. R. P. Fischer[N] maintains that the
subjective feelings and desires or affects and passions manifest
themselves in the wilfulness of the dream life, and that the moral
characteristics of a person are mirrored in his dream.

Haffner[32] (p. 25): “With rare exceptions ... a virtuous person will be
virtuous also in his dreams; he will resist temptation, and show no
sympathy for hatred, envy, anger, and all other vices; while the sinful
person will, as a rule, also find in his dreams the pictures which he
has before him while awake.”

Scholz[59] (p. 36): “In the dream there is truth; despite all masking in
pride or humility, we still recognise our own self.... The honest man
does not commit any dishonourable offence even in the dream, or, if this
does occur, he is terrified over it as if over something foreign to his
nature. The Roman emperor who ordered one of his subjects to be executed
because he dreamed that he cut off the emperor’s head, was not wrong in
justifying his action on the ground that he who has such dreams must
have similar thoughts while awake. About a thing that can have no place
in our mind we therefore say significantly: ‘I would never dream of such
a thing.’”

Pfaff,[O] varying a familiar proverb, says: “Tell me for a time your
dreams, and I will tell you what you are within.”

The short work of Hildebrandt,[35] from which I have already taken so
many quotations, a contribution to the dream problem as complete and as
rich in thought as I found in the literature, places the problem of
morality in the dream as the central point of its interest. For
Hildebrandt, too, it is a strict rule that the purer the life, the purer
the dream; the impurer the former, the impurer the latter.

The moral nature of man remains even in the dream: “But while we are not
offended nor made suspicious by an arithmetical error no matter how
obvious, by a reversal of science no matter how romantic, or by an
anachronism no matter how witty, we nevertheless do not lose sight of
the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice.
No matter how much of what follows us during the day may vanish in our
hours of sleep—Kant’s categorical imperative sticks to our heels as an
inseparable companion from whom we cannot rid ourselves even in
slumber.... This can be explained, however, only by the fact that the
fundamental in human nature, the moral essence, is too firmly fixed to
take part in the activity of the kaleidoscopic shaking up to which
phantasy, reason, memory, and other faculties of the same rank succumb
in the dream” (p. 45, &c.).

In the further discussion of the subject we find remarkable distortion
and inconsequence in both groups of authors. Strictly speaking, interest
in immoral dreams would cease for all those who assert that the moral
personality of the person crumbles away in the dream. They could just as
calmly reject the attempt to hold the dreamer responsible for his
dreams, and to draw inferences from the badness of his dreams as to an
evil strain in his nature, as they rejected the apparently similar
attempt to demonstrate the insignificance of his intellectual life in
the waking state from the absurdity of his dreams. The others for whom
“the categorical imperative” extends also into the dream, would have to
accept full responsibility for the immoral dreams; it would only be
desirable for their own sake that their own objectionable dreams should
not lead them to abandon the otherwise firmly held estimation of their
own morality.

Still it seems that no one knows exactly about himself how good or how
bad he is, and that no one can deny the recollection of his own immoral
dreams. For besides the opposition already mentioned in the criticism of
the morality of the dream, both groups of authors display an effort to
explain the origin of the immoral dream and a new opposition is
developed, depending on whether their origin is sought in the functions
of the psychic life or in the somatically determined injuries to this
life. The urgent force of the facts then permits the representatives of
the responsibility, as well as of the irresponsibility of the dream
life, to agree in the recognition of a special psychic source for the
immorality of dreams.

All those who allow the continuance of the morality in the dream
nevertheless guard against accepting full responsibility for their
dreams. Haffner[32] says (p. 24): “We are not responsible for dreams
because the basis upon which alone our life has truth and reality is
removed from our thoughts.... Hence there can be no dream wishing and
dream acting, no virtue or sin.” Still the person is responsible for the
sinful dream in so far as he brings it about indirectly. Just as in the
waking state, it is his duty to cleanse his moral mind, particularly so
before retiring to sleep.

The analysis of this mixture of rejection and recognition of
responsibility for the moral content of the dream is followed much
further by Hildebrandt. After specifying that the dramatic manner of
representation in the dream, the crowding together of the most
complicated processes of deliberation in the briefest period of time,
and the depreciation and the confusion of the presentation elements in
the dream admitted by him must be recognised as unfavourable to the
immoral aspect of dreams; he nevertheless confesses that, yielding to
the most earnest reflection, he is inclined simply to deny all
responsibility for faults and dream sins.

(P. 49): “If we wish to reject very decisively any unjust accusation,
especially one that has reference to our intentions and convictions, we
naturally make use of the expression: I should never have dreamed of
such a thing. By this we mean to say, of course, that we consider the
realm of the dream the last and remotest place in which we are to be
held responsible for our thoughts, because there these thoughts are only
loosely and incoherently connected with our real being, so that we
should hardly still consider them as our own; but as we feel impelled
expressly to deny the existence of such thoughts, even in this realm, we
thus at the same time indirectly admit that our justification will not
be complete if it does not reach to that point. And I believe that,
though unconsciously, we here speak the language of truth.”

(P. 52): “No dream thought can be imagined whose first motive has not
already moved through the mind while awake as some wish, desire, or
impulse.” Concerning this original impulse we must say that the dream
has not discovered it—it has only imitated and extended it, it has only
elaborated a bit of historical material which it has found in us, into
dramatic form; it enacts the words of the apostle: He who hates his
brother is a murderer. And whereas, after we awaken and become conscious
of our moral strength, we may smile at the boldly executed structure of
the depraved dream, the original formative material, nevertheless, has
no ridiculous side. One feels responsible for the transgressions of the
dreamer, not for the whole sum, but still for a certain percentage. “In
this sense, which is difficult to impugn, we understand the words of
Christ: Out of the heart come evil thoughts—for we can hardly help being
convinced that every sin committed in the dream brings with it at least
a vague minimum of guilt.”

Hildebrandt thus finds the source of the immorality of dreams in the
germs and indications of evil impulses which pass through our minds
during the day as tempting thoughts, and he sees fit to add these
immoral elements to the moral estimation of the personality. It is the
same thoughts and the same estimation of these thoughts, which, as we
know, have caused devout and holy men of all times to lament that they
are evil sinners.

There is certainly no reason to doubt the general occurrence of these
contrasting presentations—in most men and even also in other than
ethical spheres. The judgment of these at times has not been very
earnest. In Spitta[64] we find the following relevant expression from A.
Zeller (Article “Irre” in the _Allgemeinen Encyklopädie der
Wissenschaften_ of Ersch and Grüber, p. 144): “The mind is rarely so
happily organised as to possess at all times power enough not to be
disturbed, not only by unessential but also by perfectly ridiculous
ideas running counter to the usual clear trend of thought; indeed, the
greatest thinkers have had cause to complain of this dreamlike
disturbing and painful rabble of ideas, as it destroys their profoundest
reflection and their most sacred and earnest mental work.”

A clearer light is thrown on the psychological status of this idea of
contrast by another observation of Hildebrandt, that the dream at times
allows us to glance into the deep and inmost recesses of our being,
which are generally closed to us in our waking state (p. 55). The same
knowledge is revealed by Kant in his _Anthropology_, when he states that
the dream exists in order to lay bare for us our hidden dispositions and
to reveal to us not what we are, but what we might have been if we had a
different education. Radestock[54] (p. 84) says that the dream often
only reveals to us what we do not wish to admit to ourselves, and that
we therefore unjustly condemn it as a liar and deceiver. That the
appearance of impulses which are foreign to our consciousness is merely
analogous to the already familiar disposition which the dream makes of
other material of the presentation, which is either absent or plays only
an insignificant part in the waking state, has been called to our
attention by observations like those of Benini,[3] who says: “Certe
nostre inclinazione che si credevano soffocate a spente da un pezzo, si
ridestano; passioni vecchie e sepolte rivivono; cose e persone a cui non
pensiamo mai, ci vengono dinanzi” (p. 149). Volkelt[72] expresses
himself in a similar way: “Even presentations which have entered into
our consciousness almost unnoticed, and have never perhaps been brought
out from oblivion, often announce through the dream their presence in
the mind” (p. 105). Finally, it is not out of place to mention here
that, according to Schleiermacher,[61] the state of falling asleep is
accompanied by the appearance of undesirable presentations (pictures).

We may comprise under “undesirable presentations” this entire material
of presentations, the occurrence of which excites our wonder in immoral
as well as in absurd dreams. The only important difference consists in
the fact that our undesirable presentations in the moral sphere exhibit
an opposition to our other feelings, whereas the others simply appear
strange to us. Nothing has been done so far to enable us to remove this
difference through a more penetrating knowledge.

But what is the significance of the appearance of undesirable
presentations in the dream? What inferences may be drawn for the
psychology of the waking and dreaming mind from these nocturnal
manifestations of contrasting ethical impulses? We may here note a new
diversity of opinion, and once more a different grouping of the authors.
The stream of thought followed by Hildebrandt, and by others who
represent his fundamental view, cannot be continued in any other way
than by ascribing to the immoral impulses a certain force even in the
waking state, which, to be sure, is inhibited from advancing to action,
and asserting that something falls off during sleep, which, having the
effect of an inhibition, has kept us from noticing the existence of such
an impulse. The dream thus shows the real, if not the entire nature of
man, and is a means of making the hidden psychic life accessible to our
understanding. It is only on such assumption that Hildebrandt can
attribute to the dream the rôle of monitor who calls our attention to
the moral ravages in the soul, just as in the opinion of physicians it
can announce a hitherto unobserved physical ailment. Spitta,[64] too,
cannot be guided by any other conception when he refers to the stream of
excitement which, _e.g._, flows in upon the psyche during puberty, and
consoles the dreamer by saying that he has done everything in his power
when he has led a strictly virtuous life during his waking state, when
he has made an effort to suppress the sinful thoughts as often as they
arise, and has kept them from maturing and becoming actions. According
to this conception, we might designate the “undesirable” presentations
as those that are “suppressed” during the day, and must recognise in
their appearance a real psychic phenomenon.

If we followed other authors we would have no right to the last
inference. For Jessen[36] the undesirable presentations in the dream as
in the waking state, in fever and other deliria, merely have “the
character of a voluntary activity put to rest and a somewhat mechanical
process of pictures and presentations produced by inner impulses” (p.
360). An immoral dream proves nothing for the psychic life of the
dreamer except that he has in some way become cognizant of the ideas in
question; it is surely not a psychic impulse of his own. Another author,
Maury,[48] makes us question whether he, too, does not attribute to the
dream state the capacity for dividing the psychic activity into its
components instead of destroying it aimlessly. He speaks as follows
about dreams in which one goes beyond the bounds of morality: “Ce sont
nos penchants qui parlent et qui nous font agir, sans que la conscience
nous retienne, bien que parfois elle nous avertisse. J’ai mes défauts et
mes penchants vicieux; à l’état de veille, je tache de lutter contre
eux, et il m’arrive assez souvent de n’y pas succomber. Mais dans mes
songes j’y succombe toujours ou pour mieux dire j’agis, par leur
impulsion, sans crainte et sans remords.... Évidemment les visions qui
se déroulent devant ma pensée et qui constituent le rêve, me sont
suggérées par les incitations que je ressens et que ma volonté absente
ne cherche pas à refouler” (p. 113).

If one believes in the capacity of the dream to reveal an actually
existing but repressed or concealed immoral disposition of the dreamer,
he could not emphasize his opinion more strongly than with the words of
Maury (p. 115): “En rêve l’homme se révèle donc tout entier à soi-même
dans sa nudité et sa misère natives. Dès qu’il suspend l’exercice de sa
volonté, il dévient le jouet de toutes les passions contre lesquelles, à
l’état de veille, la conscience, le sentiment d’honneur, la crainte nous
défendent.” In another place he finds the following striking words (p.
462): “Dans le rêve, c’est surtout l’homme instinctif que se révèle....
L’homme revient pour ainsi dire à l’état de nature quand il rêve; mais
moins les idées acquises ont pénétré dans son esprit, plus les penchants
en désaccord avec elles conservent encore sur lui d’influence dans le
rêve.” He then mentions as an example that his dreams often show him as
a victim of just those superstitions which he most violently combats in
his writing.

The value of all these ingenious observations for a psychological
knowledge of the dream life, however, is marred by Maury through the
fact that he refuses to recognise in the phenomena so correctly observed
by him any proof of the “automatisme psychologique” which in his opinion
dominates the dream life. He conceives this automatism as a perfect
contrast to the psychic activity.

A passage in the studies on consciousness by Stricker[77] reads: “The
dream does not consist of delusions merely; if, _e.g._, one is afraid of
robbers in the dream, the robbers are, of course, imaginary, but the
fear is real. One’s attention is thus called to the fact that the
effective development in the dream does not admit of the judgment which
one bestows upon the rest of the dream content, and the problem arises
what part of the psychic processes in the dream may be real, _i.e._ what
part of them may demand to be enrolled among the psychic processes of
the waking state?”

(_g_) _Dream Theories and Functions of the Dream._—A statement
concerning the dream which as far as possible attempts to explain from
one point of view many of its noted characters, and which at the same
time determines the relation of the dream to a more comprehensive sphere
of manifestations, may be called a theory of dreams. Individual theories
of the dream will be distinguished from one another through the fact
that they raise to prominence this or that characteristic of the dream,
and connect explanations and relations with it. It will not be
absolutely necessary to derive from the theory a function, _i.e._ a use
or any such activity of the dream, but our expectation, which is usually
adjusted to teleology, will nevertheless welcome those theories which
promise an understanding of the function of the dream.

We have already become acquainted with many conceptions of the dream
which, more or less, merit the name of dream theories in this sense. The
belief of the ancients that the dream was sent by the gods in order to
guide the actions of man was a complete theory of the dream giving
information concerning everything in the dream worth knowing. Since the
dream has become an object of biological investigation we have a greater
number of theories, of which, however, some are very incomplete.

If we waive completeness, we may attempt the following loose grouping of
dream theories based on their fundamental conception of the degree and
mode of the psychic activity in the dream:—

1. Theories, like those of Delbœuf,[16] which allow the full psychic
activity of the waking state to continue into the dream. Here the mind
does not sleep; its apparatus remains intact, and, being placed under
the conditions different from the waking state, it must in normal
activity furnish results different from those of the waking state. In
these theories it is a question whether they are in position to derive
the distinctions between dreaming and waking thought altogether from the
determinations of the sleeping state. They moreover lack a possible
access to a function of the dream; one cannot understand why one dreams,
why the complicated mechanism of the psychic apparatus continues to play
even when it is placed under conditions for which it is not apparently
adapted. There remain only two expedient reactions—to sleep dreamlessly
or to awake when approached by disturbing stimuli—instead of the third,
that of dreaming.

2. Theories which, on the contrary, assume for the dream a diminution
for the psychic activity, a loosening of the connections, and an
impoverishment in available material. In accordance with these theories,
one must assume for sleep a psychological character entirely different
from the one given by Delbœuf. Sleep extends far beyond the mind—it does
not consist merely in a shutting off of the mind from the outer world;
on the contrary, it penetrates into its mechanism, causing it at times
to become useless. If I may draw a comparison from psychiatrical
material, I may say that the first theories construct the dream like a
paranoia, while the second make it after the model of a dementia or an
amentia.

The theory that only a fragment of the psychic activity paralysed by
sleep comes to expression is by far the favourite among the medical
writers and in the scientific world. As far as one may presuppose a more
general interest in dream interpretation, it may well be designated as
the ruling theory of the dream. It is to be emphasized with what
facility this particular theory escapes the worst rock threatening every
dream interpretation, that is to say, being shipwrecked upon one of the
contrasts embodied in the dream. As this theory considers the dream the
result of a partial waking (or as Herbart’s _Psychology_ of the dream
says, “a gradual, partial, and at the same time very anomalous waking”),
it succeeds in covering the entire series of inferior activities in the
dream which reveal themselves in its absurdities, up to the full
concentration of mental activity, by following a series of states which
become more and more awake until they reach full awakening.

One who finds the psychological mode of expression indispensable, or who
thinks more scientifically, will find this theory of the dream expressed
in the discussion of Binz[4] (p. 43):—

“This state [of numbness], however, gradually approaches its end in the
early morning hours. The accumulated material of fatigue in the albumen
of the brain gradually becomes less. It is gradually decomposed or
carried away by the constantly flowing circulation. Here and there some
masses of cells can be distinguished as awake, while all around
everything still remains in a state of torpidity. _The isolated work of
the individual groups_ now appears before our clouded consciousness,
which lacks the control of other parts of the brain governing the
associations. Hence the pictures created, which mostly correspond to the
objective impressions of the recent past, fit with each other in a wild
and irregular manner. The number of the brain cells set free becomes
constantly greater, the irrationality of the dream constantly less.”

The conception of the dream as an incomplete, partial waking state, or
traces of its influence, can surely be found among all modern
physiologists and philosophers. It is most completely represented by
Maury.[48] It often seems as if this author represented to himself the
state of being awake or asleep in anatomical regions; at any rate it
appears to him that an anatomical province is connected with a definite
psychic function. I may here merely mention that if the theory of
partial waking could be confirmed, there would remain much to be
accomplished in its elaboration.

Naturally a function of the dream cannot be found in this conception of
the dream life. On the contrary, the criticism of the status and
importance of the dream is consistently uttered in this statement of
Binz (p. 357): “All the facts, as we see, urge us to characterise the
dream as a physical process in all cases useless, in many cases even
morbid.”

The expression “physical” in reference to the dream, which owes its
prominence to this author, points in more than one direction. In the
first place, it refers to the etiology of the dream, which was
especially clear to Binz, as he studied the experimental production of
dreams by the administration of poisons. It is certainly in keeping with
this kind of dream theory to ascribe the incitement of the dream
exclusively to somatic origin whenever possible. Presented in the most
extreme form, it reads as follows: After we have put ourselves to sleep
by removing the stimuli, there would be no need and no occasion for
dreaming until morning, when the gradual awakening through the incoming
stimuli would be reflected in the phenomenon of dreaming. But as a
matter of fact, it is not possible to keep sleep free from stimuli; just
as Mephisto complains about the germs of life, so stimuli reach the
sleeper from every side—from without, from within, and even from certain
bodily regions which never give us any concern during the waking state.
Thus sleep is disturbed; the mind is aroused, now by this, now by that
little thing, and functionates for a while with the awakened part only
to be glad to fall asleep again. The dream is a reaction to the stimulus
causing a disturbance of sleep—to be sure, it is a purely superfluous
reaction.

To designate the dream as a physical process, which for all that remains
an activity of the mental organ, has still another sense. It is meant to
dispute the dignity of a psychic process for the dream. The application
to the dream of the very old comparison of the “ten fingers of a
musically ignorant person running over the keyboard of an instrument,”
perhaps best illustrates in what estimation the dream activity has been
held by the representatives of exact science. In this sense it becomes
something entirely untranslatable, for how could the ten fingers of an
unmusical player produce any music?

The theory of partial wakefulness has not passed without objection even
in early times. Thus Burdach,[8] in 1830, says: “If we say that the
dream is a partial wakefulness, in the first place, we explain thereby
neither the waking nor the sleeping state; secondly, this expresses
nothing more than that certain forces of the mind are active in the
dream while others are at rest. But such irregularities take place
throughout life....” (p. 483).

Among extant dream theories which consider the dream a “physical”
process, there is one very interesting conception of the dream, first
propounded by Robert[55] in 1866, which is attractive because it assigns
to the dream a function or a useful end. As a basis for this theory,
Robert takes from observation two facts which we have already discussed
in our consideration of the dream material (see p. 13). These facts are:
that one very often dreams about the insignificant impressions of the
day, and that one rarely carries over into the dream the absorbing
interests of the day. Robert asserts as exclusively correct, that things
which have been fully settled never become dream inciters, but only such
things as are incomplete in the mind or touch it fleetingly (p. 11). “We
cannot usually explain our dreams because their causes are to be found
_in sensory impressions of the preceding day which have not attained
sufficient recognition by the dreamer_.” The conditions allowing an
impression to reach the dream are therefore, either that this impression
has been disturbed in its elaboration, or that being too insignificant
it has no claim to such elaboration.

Robert therefore conceives the dream “as a physical process of
elimination which has reached to cognition in the psychic manifestation
of its reaction.” _Dreams are eliminations of thoughts nipped in the
bud._ “A man deprived of the capacity for dreaming would surely in time
become mentally unbalanced, because an immense number of unfinished and
unsolved thoughts and superficial impressions would accumulate in his
brain, under the pressure of which there would be crushed all that
should be incorporated as a finished whole into memory.” The dream acts
as a safety-valve for the overburdened brain. _Dreams possess healing
and unburdening properties_ (p. 32).

It would be a mistake to ask Robert how representation in the dream can
bring about an unburdening of the mind. The author apparently concluded
from those two peculiarities of the dream material that during sleep
such ejection of worthless impressions is effected as a somatic process,
and that dreaming is not a special psychic process but only the
knowledge that we receive of such elimination. To be sure an elimination
is not the only thing that takes place in the mind during sleep. Robert
himself adds that the incitements of the day are also elaborated, and
“what cannot be eliminated from the undigested thought material lying in
the mind becomes connected _by threads of thought borrowed from the
phantasy into a finished whole_, and thus enrolled in the memory as a
harmless phantasy picture” (p. 23).

But it is in his criticism of the dream sources that Robert appears most
bluntly opposed to the ruling theory. Whereas according to the existing
theory there would be no dream if the outer and inner sensory stimuli
did not repeatedly wake the mind, according to Robert the impulse to
dream lies in the mind itself. It lies in the overcharging which demands
discharge, and Robert judges with perfect consistency when he maintains
that the causes determining the dream which depend on the physical state
assume a subordinate rank, and could not incite dreams in a mind
containing no material for dream formation taken from waking
consciousness. It is admitted, however, that the phantasy pictures
originating in the depths of the mind can be influenced by the nervous
stimuli (p. 48). Thus, according to Robert, the dream is not quite so
dependent on the somatic element. To be sure, it is not a psychic
process, and has no place among the psychic processes of the waking
state; it is a nocturnal somatic process in the apparatus devoted to
mental activity, and has a function to perform, viz. to guard this
apparatus against overstraining, or, if the comparison may be changed,
to cleanse the mind.

Another author, Yves Delage,[15] bases his theory on the same
characteristics of the dream, which become clear in the selection of the
dream material, and it is instructive to observe how a slight turn in
the conception of the same things gives a final result of quite
different bearing.

Delage, after having lost through death a person very dear to him, found
from his own experience that we do not dream of what occupies us
intently during the day, or that we begin to dream of it only after it
is overshadowed by other interests of the day. His investigations among
other persons corroborated the universality of this state of affairs.
Delage makes a nice observation of this kind, if it turns out to be
generally true, about the dreaming of newly married people: “S’ils ont
été fortement épris, presque jamais ils n’ont rêve l’un de l’autre avant
le mariage ou pendant la lune de miel; et s’ils ont rêve d’amour c’est
pour être infidèles avec quelque personne indifférente ou odieuse.” But
what does one dream of? Delage recognises that the material occurring in
our dreams consists of fragments and remnants of impressions from the
days preceding and former times. All that appears in our dreams, what at
first we may be inclined to consider creations of the dream life, proves
on more thorough investigation to be unrecognised reproductions,
“souvenir inconscient.” But this presentation material shows a common
character; it originates from impressions which have probably affected
our senses more forcibly than our mind, or from which the attention has
been deflected soon after their appearance. The less conscious, and at
the same time the stronger the impression, the more prospect it has of
playing a part in the next dream.

These are essentially the same two categories of impressions, the
insignificant and the unadjusted, which were emphasized by Robert,[55]
but Delage changes the connection by assuming that these impressions
become the subject of dreams, not because they are indifferent, but
because they are unadjusted. The insignificant impressions, too, are in
a way not fully adjusted; they, too, are from their nature as new
impressions “autant de ressorts tendus,” which will be relaxed during
sleep. Still more entitled to a rôle in the dream than the weak and
almost unnoticed impression is a strong impression which has been
accidentally detained in its elaboration or intentionally repressed. The
psychic energy accumulated during the day through inhibition or
suppression becomes the mainspring of the dream at night.

Unfortunately Delage stops here in his train of thought; he can ascribe
only the smallest part to an independent psychic activity in the dream,
and thus in his dream theory reverts to the ruling doctrine of a partial
sleep of the brain: “En somme le rêve est le produit de la pensée
errante, sans but et sans direction, se fixant successivement sur les
souvenirs, qui ont gardé assez d’intensité pour se placer sur sa route
et l’arrêter au passage, établissant entre eux un lien tantôt faible et
indécis, tantôt plus fort et plus serré, selon que l’activité actuelle
du cerveau est plus ou moins abolie par le sommeil.”

In a third group we may include those dream theories which ascribe to
the dreaming mind the capacity and propensity for a special psychic
activity, which in the waking state it can accomplish either not at all
or only in an imperfect manner. From the activity of these capacities
there usually results a useful function of the dream. The dignity
bestowed upon the dream by older psychological authors falls chiefly in
this category. I shall content myself, however, with quoting, in their
place, the assertions of Burdach,[8] by virtue of which the dream “is
the natural activity of the mind, which is not limited by the force of
the individuality, not disturbed by self-consciousness and not directed
by self-determination, but is the state of life of the sensible central
point indulging in free play” (p. 486).

Burdach and others apparently consider this revelling in the free use of
one’s own powers as a state in which the mind refreshes itself and takes
on new strength for the day work, something after the manner of a
vacation holiday. Burdach, therefore, cites with approval the admirable
words in which the poet Novalis lauds the sway of the dream: “The dream
is a bulwark against the regularity and commonness of life, a free
recreation of the fettered phantasy, in which it mixes together all the
pictures of life and interrupts the continued earnestness of grown-up
men with a joyous children’s play. Without the dream we should surely
age earlier, and thus the dream may be considered perhaps not a gift
directly from above, but a delightful task, a friendly companion, on our
pilgrimage to the grave.”

The refreshing and curative activity of the dream is even more
impressively depicted by Purkinje.[53] “The productive dreams in
particular would perform these functions. They are easy plays of the
imagination, which have no connection with the events of the day. The
mind does not wish to continue the tension of the waking life, but to
release it and recuperate from it. It produces, in the first place,
conditions opposed to those of the waking state. It cures sadness
through joy, worry through hope and cheerfully distracting pictures,
hatred through love and friendliness, and fear through courage and
confidence; it calms doubt through conviction and firm belief, and vain
expectations through realisation. Many sore spots in the mind, which the
day keeps continually open, sleep heals by covering them and guarding
against fresh excitement. Upon this the curative effect of time is
partially based.” We all feel that sleep is beneficial to the psychic
life, and the vague surmise of the popular consciousness apparently
cannot be robbed of the notion that the dream is one of the ways in
which sleep distributes its benefits.

The most original and most far-reaching attempt to explain the dream as
a special activity of the mind, which can freely display itself only in
the sleeping state, was the one undertaken by Scherner[58] in 1861.
Scherner’s book, written in a heavy and bombastic style, inspired by an
almost intoxicated enthusiasm for the subject, which must repel us
unless it can carry us away with it, places so many difficulties in the
way of an analysis that we gladly resort to the clearer and shorter
description in which the philosopher Volkelt[72] presents Scherner’s
theories: “From the mystic conglomerations and from all the gorgeous and
magnificent billows there indeed flashes and irradiates an ominous light
of sense, but the path of the philosopher does not thereby become
clearer.” Such is the criticism of Scherner’s description from one of
his own adherents.

Scherner does not belong to those authors who allow the mind to take
along its undiminished capacities into the dream life. He indeed
explains how in the dream the centrality and the spontaneous energy of
the ego are enervated, how cognition, feeling, will, and imagination
become changed through this decentralisation, and how no true mental
character, but only the nature of a mechanism, belongs to the remnants
of these psychic forces. But instead, the activity of the mind
designated as phantasy, freed from all rational domination and hence
completely uncontrolled, rises in the dream to absolute supremacy. To be
sure, it takes the last building stones from the memory of the waking
state, but it builds with them constructions as different from the
structures of the waking state as day and night. It shows itself in the
dream not only reproductive, but productive. Its peculiarities give to
the dream life its strange character. It shows a preference for the
unlimited, exaggerated, and prodigious, but because freed from the
impeding thought categories, it gains a greater flexibility and agility
and new pleasure; it is extremely sensitive to the delicate emotional
stimuli of the mind and to the agitating affects, and it rapidly recasts
the inner life into the outer plastic clearness. The dream phantasy
lacks the language of ideas; what it wishes to say, it must clearly
depict; and as the idea now acts strongly, it depicts it with the
richness, force, and immensity of the mode in question. Its language,
however simple it may be, thus becomes circumstantial, cumbersome, and
heavy. Clearness of language is rendered especially difficult by the
fact that it shows a dislike for expressing an object by its own
picture, but prefers a strange picture, if the latter can only express
that moment of the object which it wishes to describe. This is the
symbolising activity of the phantasy.... It is, moreover, of great
significance that the dream phantasy copies objects not in detail, but
only in outline and even this in the broadest manner. Its paintings,
therefore, appear ingeniously light and graceful. The dream phantasy,
however, does not stop at the mere representation of the object, but is
impelled from within to mingle with the object more or less of the dream
ego, and in this way to produce an action. The visual dream, _e.g._,
depicts gold coins in the street; the dreamer picks them up, rejoices,
and carries them away.

According to Scherner, the material upon which the dream phantasy exerts
its artistic activity is preponderately that of the organic sensory
stimuli which are so obscure during the day (comp. p. 29); hence the
phantastic theory of Scherner, and the perhaps over-sober theories of
Wundt and other physiologists, though otherwise diametrically opposed,
agree perfectly in their assumption of the dream sources and dream
excitants. But whereas, according to the physiological theory, the
psychic reaction to the inner physical stimuli becomes exhausted with
the awakening of any ideas suitable to these stimuli, these ideas then
by way of association calling to their aid other ideas, and with this
stage the chain of psychic processes seeming to terminate according to
Scherner, the physical stimuli only supply the psychic force with a
material which it may render subservient to its phantastic intentions.
For Scherner the formation of the dream only commences where in the
conception of others it comes to an end.

The treatment of the physical stimuli by the dream phantasy surely
cannot be considered purposeful. The phantasy plays a tantalising game
with them, and represents the organic source which gives origin to the
stimuli in the correspondent dream, in any plastic symbolism. Indeed
Scherner holds the opinion, not shared by Volkelt and others, that the
dream phantasy has a certain favourite representation for the entire
organism; this representation would be the _house_. Fortunately,
however, it does not seem to limit itself in its presentation to this
material; it may also conversely employ a whole series of houses to
designate a single organ, _e.g._, very long rows of houses for the
intestinal excitation. On other occasions particular parts of the house
actually represent particular parts of the body, as _e.g._, in the
headache-dream, the ceiling of the room (which the dream sees covered
with disgusting reptile-like spiders) represents the head.

Quite irrespective of the house symbolism, any other suitable object may
be employed for the representation of these parts of the body which
excite the dream. “Thus the breathing lungs find their symbol in the
flaming stove with its gaseous roaring, the heart in hollow boxes and
baskets, the bladder in round, bag-shaped, or simply hollowed objects.
The male dream of sexual excitement makes the dreamer find in the street
the upper portion of a clarinette, next to it the same part of a tobacco
pipe, and next to that a piece of fur. The clarinette and tobacco pipe
represent the approximate shape of the male sexual organ, while the fur
represents the pubic hair. In the female sexual dream the tightness of
the closely approximated thighs may be symbolised by a narrow courtyard
surrounded by houses, and the vagina by a very narrow, slippery and soft
footpath, leading through the courtyard, upon which the dreamer is
obliged to walk, in order perhaps to carry a letter to a gentleman”
(Volkelt, p. 39). It is particularly noteworthy that at the end of such
a physically exciting dream, the phantasy, as it were, unmasks by
representing the exciting organ or its function unconcealed. Thus the
“tooth-exciting dream” usually ends with the dreamer taking a tooth out
of his mouth.

The dream phantasy may, however, not only direct its attention to the
shape of the exciting organ, but it may also make the substance
contained therein the object of the symbolisation. Thus the dream of
intestinal excitement, _e.g._, may lead us through muddy streets, the
bladder-exciting dream to foaming water. Or the stimulus itself, the
manner of its excitation, and the object it covets, are represented
symbolically, or the dream ego enters into a concrete combination with
the symbolisation of its own state, as _e.g._, when, in the case of
painful stimuli, we struggle desperately with vicious dogs or raging
bulls, or when in the sexual dream the dreamer sees herself pursued by a
naked man. Disregarding all the possible prolixity of elaboration, a
symbolising phantastic activity remains as the central force of every
dream. Volkelt,[72] in his finely and fervently written book, next
attempted to penetrate further into the character of this phantasy and
to assign to the psychical activity thus recognised, its position in a
system of philosophical ideas, which, however, remains altogether too
difficult of comprehension for any one who is not prepared by previous
schooling for the sympathetic comprehension of philosophical modes of
thinking.

Scherner connects no useful function with the activity of the
symbolising phantasy in dreams. In the dream the psyche plays with the
stimuli at its disposal. One might presume that it plays in an improper
manner. One might also ask us whether our thorough study of Scherner’s
dream theory, the arbitrariness and deviation of which from the rules of
all investigation are only too obvious, can lead to any useful results.
It would then be proper for us to forestall the rejection of Scherner’s
theory without examination by saying that this would be too arrogant.
This theory is built up on the impression received from his dreams by a
man who paid great attention to them, and who would appear to be
personally very well fitted to trace obscure psychic occurrences.
Furthermore it treats a subject which, for thousands of years, has
appeared mysterious to humanity though rich in its contents and
relations; and for the elucidation of which stern science, as it
confesses itself, has contributed nothing beyond attempting, in entire
opposition to popular sentiment, to deny the substance and significance
of the object. Finally, let us frankly admit that apparently we cannot
avoid the phantastical in our attempts to elucidate the dream. There are
also phantastic ganglia cells; the passage cited on p. 63 from a sober
and exact investigator like Binz,[4] which depicts how the aurora of
awakening flows along the dormant cell masses of the cerebrum, is not
inferior in fancifulness and in improbability to Scherner’s attempts at
interpretation. I hope to be able to demonstrate that there is something
actual underlying the latter, though it has only been indistinctly
observed and does not possess the character of universality entitling it
to the claim of a dream theory. For the present, Scherner’s theory of
the dream, in its contrast to the medical theory, may perhaps lead us to
realise between what extremes the explanation of dream life is still
unsteadily vacillating.

(_h_) _Relations between the Dream and Mental Diseases._—When we speak
of the relation of the dream to mental disturbances, we may think of
three different things: (1) Etiological and clinical relations, as when
a dream represents or initiates a psychotic condition, or when it leaves
such a condition behind it. (2) Changes to which the dream life is
subjected in mental diseases. (3) Inner relations between the dream and
the psychoses, analogies indicating an intimate relationship. These
manifold relations between the two series of phenomena have been a
favourite theme of medical authors in the earlier periods of medical
science—and again in recent times—as we learn from the literature on the
subject gathered from Spitta,[64] Radestock,[54] Maury,[48] and
Tissié.[68] Sante de Sanctis has lately directed his attention to this
relationship. For the purposes of our discussion it will suffice merely
to glance at this important subject.

In regard to the clinical and etiological relations between the dream
and the psychoses, I will report the following observations as
paradigms. Hohnbaum asserts (see Krauss, p. 39), that the first attack
of insanity frequently originates in an anxious and terrifying dream,
and that the ruling idea has connection with this dream. Sante de
Sanctis adduces similar observations in paranoiacs, and declares the
dream to be, in some of them, the “vraie cause déterminante de la
folie.” The psychosis may come to life all of a sudden with the dream
causing and containing the explanation for the mental disturbances, or
it may slowly develop through further dreams that have yet to struggle
against doubt. In one of de Sanctis’s cases, the affecting dream was
accompanied by light hysterical attacks, which in their turn were
followed by an anxious, melancholic state. Féré (cited by Tissié) refers
to a dream which caused an hysterical paralysis. Here the dream is
offered us as an etiology of mental disturbance, though we equally
consider the prevailing conditions when we declare that the mental
disturbance shows its first manifestation in dream life, that it has its
first outbreak in the dream. In other instances the dream life contained
the morbid symptoms, or the psychosis was limited to the dream life.
Thus Thomayer[70] calls attention to anxiety dreams which must be
conceived as equivalent to epileptic attacks. Allison has described
nocturnal insanity (cited by Radestock), in which the subjects are
apparently perfectly well in the day-time, while hallucinations, fits of
frenzy, and the like regularly appear at night. De Sanctis and Tissié
report similar observations (paranoiac dream-equivalent in an alcoholic,
voices accusing a wife of infidelity). Tissié reports abundant
observations from recent times in which actions of a pathological
character (based on delusions, obsessive impulses) had their origin in
dreams. Guislain describes a case in which sleep was replaced by an
intermittent insanity.

There is hardly any doubt that along with the psychology of the dream,
the physician will one day occupy himself with the psychopathology of
the dream.

In cases of convalescence from insanity, it is often especially obvious
that, while the functions of the day are normal, the dream life may
still belong to the psychosis. Gregory is said first to have called
attention to such cases (cited by Krauss[39]). Macario (reported by
Tissié) gives account of a maniac who, a week after his complete
recovery again experienced in dreams the flight of ideas and the
passionate impulses of his disease.

Concerning the changes to which the dream life is subjected in chronic
psychotic persons, very few investigations have so far been made. On the
other hand, timely attention has been called to the inner relationship
between the dream and mental disturbance, which shows itself in an
extensive agreement of the manifestations occurring to both. According
to Maury,[47] Cubanis, in his _Rapports du physique et du moral_, first
called attention to this; following him came Lelut, J. Moreau, and more
particularly the philosopher Maine de Biran. To be sure, the comparison
is still older. Radestock[54] begins the chapter dealing with this
comparison, by giving a collection of expressions showing the analogy
between the dream and insanity. Kant somewhere says: “The lunatic is a
dreamer in the waking state.” According to Krauss “Insanity is a dream
with the senses awake.” Schopenhauer terms the dream a short insanity,
and insanity a long dream. Hagen describes the delirium as dream life
which has not been caused by sleep but by disease. Wundt, in the
_Physiological Psychology_, declares: “As a matter of fact we may in the
dream ourselves live through almost all symptoms which we meet in the
insane asylums.”

The specific agreements, on the basis of which such an identification
commends itself to the understanding, are enumerated by Spitta.[64] And
indeed, very similarly, by Maury in the following grouping: “(1)
Suspension or at least retardation, of self-consciousness, consequent
ignorance of the condition as such, and hence incapability of
astonishment and lack of moral consciousness. (2) Modified perception of
the sensory organs; that is, perception is diminished in the dream and
generally enhanced in insanity. (3) Combination of ideas with each other
exclusively in accordance with the laws of association and of
reproduction, hence automatic formation of groups and for this reason
disproportion in the relations between ideas (exaggerations, phantasms).
And as a result of all this: (4) Changing or transformation of the
personality and at times of the peculiarities of character
(perversities).”

Radestock gives some additional features or analogies in the material:
“Most hallucinations and illusions are found in the sphere of the senses
of sight and hearing and general sensation. As in the dream, the
smallest number of elements is supplied by the senses of smell and
taste. The fever patient, like the dreamer, is assaulted by
reminiscences from the remote past; what the waking and healthy man
seems to have forgotten is recollected in sleep and in disease.” The
analogy between the dream and the psychosis receives its full value only
when, like a family resemblance, it is extended to the finer mimicry and
to the individual peculiarities of facial expression.

“To him who is tortured by physical and mental sufferings the dream
accords what has been denied him by reality, to wit, physical well-being
and happiness; so the insane, too, see the bright pictures of happiness,
greatness, sublimity, and riches. The supposed possession of estates and
the imaginary fulfilment of wishes, the denial or destruction of which
have just served as a psychic cause of the insanity, often form the main
content of the delirium. The woman who has lost a dearly beloved child,
in her delirium experiences maternal joys; the man who has suffered
reverses of fortune deems himself immensely wealthy; and the jilted girl
pictures herself in the bliss of tender love.”

The above passage from Radestock, an abstract of a keen discussion of
Griesinger[31] (p. 111), reveals with the greatest clearness the wish
fulfilment as a characteristic of the imagination, common to the dream
and the psychosis. (My own investigations have taught me that here the
key to a psychological theory of the dream and of the psychosis is to be
found.)

“Absurd combinations of ideas and weakness of judgment are the main
characteristics of the dream and of insanity.” The over-estimation of
one’s own mental capacity, which appears absurd to sober judgment, is
found alike both in one and the other, and the rapid course of ideas in
the dream corresponds to the flight of ideas in the psychosis. Both are
devoid of any measure of time. The dissociation of personality in the
dream, which, for instance, distributes one’s own knowledge between two
persons, one of whom, the strange one, corrects in the dream one’s own
ego, fully corresponds to the well-known splitting of personality in
hallucinatory paranoia; the dreamer, too, hears his own thoughts
expressed by strange voices. Even the constant delusions find their
analogy in the stereotyped recurring pathological dreams (_rêve
obsédant_). After recovering from a delirium, patients not infrequently
declare that the disease appeared to them like an uncomfortable dream;
indeed, they inform us that occasionally, even during the course of
their sickness, they have felt that they were only dreaming, just as it
frequently happens in the sleeping dream.

Considering all this, it is not surprising that Radestock condenses his
own opinion and that of many others into the following: “Insanity, an
abnormal phenomenon of disease, is to be regarded as an enhancement of
the periodically recurring normal dream states” (p. 228).

Krauss[39] attempted to base the relationship between the dream and
insanity upon the etiology (or rather upon the exciting sources),
perhaps making the relationship even more intimate than was possible
through the analogy of the phenomena they manifest. According to him,
the fundamental element common to both is, as we have learned, the
organically determined sensation, the sensation of physical stimuli, the
general feeling produced by contributions from all the organs. _Cf._
Peise, cited by Maury[48] (p. 60).

The incontestable agreement between the dream and mental disturbance,
extending into characteristic details, constitutes one of the strongest
supports of the medical theory of dream life, according to which the
dream is represented as a useless and disturbing process and as the
expression of a reduced psychic activity. One cannot expect, however, to
derive the final explanation of the dream from the mental disturbances,
as it is generally known in what unsatisfactory state our understanding
of the origin of the latter remains. It is very probably, however, that
a modified conception of the dream must also influence our views in
regard to the inner mechanism of mental disturbances, and hence we may
say that we are engaged in the elucidation of the psychosis when we
endeavour to clear up the mystery of the dream.

I shall have to justify myself for not extending my summary of the
literature of the dream problems over the period between the first
appearance of this book and its second edition. If this justification
may not seem very satisfactory to the reader, I was nevertheless
influenced by it. The motives which mainly induced me to summarise the
treatment of the dream in the literature have been exhausted with the
foregoing introduction; to have continued with this work would have cost
me extraordinary effort and would have afforded little advantage or
knowledge. For the period of nine years referred to has yielded nothing
new or valuable either for the conception of the dream in actual
material or in points of view. In most of the publications that have
since appeared my work has remained unmentioned and unregarded;
naturally least attention has been bestowed upon it by the so-called
“investigators of dreams,” who have thus afforded a splendid example of
the aversion characteristic of scientific men to learning something new.
“Les savants ne sont pas curieux,” said the scoffer Anatole France. If
there were such a thing in science as right to revenge, I in turn should
be justified in ignoring the literature since the appearance of this
book. The few accounts that have appeared in scientific journals are so
full of folly and misconception that my only possible answer to my
critics would be to request them to read this book over again. Perhaps
also the request should be that they read it as a whole.

In the works of those physicians who make use of the psychoanalytic
method of treatment (Jung, Abraham, Riklin, Muthmann, Stekel, Rank, and
others), an abundance of dreams have been reported and interpreted in
accordance with my instructions. In so far as these works go beyond the
confirmation of my assertions I have noted their results in the context
of my discussion. A supplement to the literary index at the end of this
book brings together the most important of these new publications. The
voluminous book on the dream by Sante de Sanctis, of which a German
translation appeared soon after its publication, has, so to speak,
crossed with mine, so that I could take as little notice of him as the
Italian author could of me. Unfortunately, I am further obliged to
declare that this laborious work is exceedingly poor in ideas, so poor
that one could never divine from it the existence of the problems
treated by me.

I have finally to mention two publications which show a near relation to
my treatment of the dream problems. A younger philosopher, H. Swoboda,
who has undertaken to extend W. Fliesse’s discovery of biological
periodicity (in groups of twenty-three and twenty-eight days) to the
psychic field, has produced an imaginative work,[P] in which, among
other things, he has used this key to solve the riddle of the dream. The
interpretation of dreams would herein have fared badly; the material
contained in dreams would be explained through the coincidence of all
those memories which during the night complete one of the biological
periods for the first or the n-th time. A personal statement from the
author led me to assume that he himself no longer wished to advocate
this theory earnestly. But it seems I was mistaken in this conclusion; I
shall report in another place some observations in reference to
Swoboda’s assertion, concerning the conclusions of which I am, however,
not convinced. It gave me far greater pleasure to find accidentally, in
an unexpected place, a conception of the dream in essentials fully
agreeing with my own. The circumstances of time preclude the possibility
that this conception was influenced by a reading of my book; I must
therefore greet this as the only demonstrable concurrence in the
literature with the essence of my dream theory. The book which contains
the passage concerning the dream which I have in mind was published as a
second edition in 1900 by Lynkus under the title _Phantasien eines
Realisten_.

                                   II
                     METHOD OF DREAM INTERPRETATION

                     THE ANALYSIS OF A SAMPLE DREAM

The title which I have given my treatise indicates the tradition which I
wish to make the starting-point in my discussion of dreams. I have made
it my task to show that dreams are capable of interpretation, and
contributions to the solution of the dream problems that have just been
treated can only be yielded as possible by-products of the settlement of
my own particular problem. With the hypothesis that dreams are
interpretable, I at once come into contradiction with the prevailing
dream science, in fact with all dream theories except that of Scherner,
for to “interpret a dream” means to declare its meaning, to replace it
by something which takes its place in the concatenation of our psychic
activities as a link of full importance and value. But, as we have
learnt, the scientific theories of the dream leave no room for a problem
of dream interpretation, for, in the first place, according to these,
the dream is no psychic action, but a somatic process which makes itself
known to the psychic apparatus by means of signs. The opinion of the
masses has always been quite different. It asserts its privilege of
proceeding illogically, and although it admits the dream to be
incomprehensible and absurd, it cannot summon the resolution to deny the
dream all significance. Led by a dim intuition, it seems rather to
assume that the dream has a meaning, albeit a hidden one; that it is
intended as a substitute for some other thought process, and that it is
only a question of revealing this substitute correctly in order to reach
the hidden signification of the dream.

The laity has, therefore, always endeavoured to “interpret” the dream,
and in doing so has tried two essentially different methods. The first
of these procedures regards the dream content as a whole and seeks to
replace it by another content which is intelligible and in certain
respects analogous. This is symbolic dream interpretation; it naturally
goes to pieces at the outset in the case of those dreams which appear
not only unintelligible but confused. The construction which the
biblical Joseph places upon the dream of Pharaoh furnishes an example of
its procedure. The seven fat kine, after which came seven lean ones
which devour the former, furnish a symbolic substitute for a prediction
of seven years of famine in the land of Egypt, which will consume all
the excess which seven fruitful years have created. Most of the
artificial dreams contrived by poets are intended for such symbolic
interpretation, for they reproduce the thought conceived by the poet in
a disguise found to be in accordance with the characteristics of our
dreaming, as we know these from experience.[Q] The idea that the dream
concerns itself chiefly with future events whose course it surmises in
advance—a relic of the prophetic significance with which dreams were
once credited—now becomes the motive for transplanting the meaning of
the dream, found by means of symbolic interpretation, into the future by
means of an “it shall.”

A demonstration of the way in which such symbolic interpretation is
arrived at cannot, of course, be given. Success remains a matter of
ingenious conjecture, of direct intuition, and for this reason dream
interpretation has naturally been elevated to an art, which seems to
depend upon extraordinary gifts.[R] The other of the two popular methods
of dream interpretation entirely abandons such claims. It might be
designated as the “cipher method,” since it treats the dream as a kind
of secret code, in which every sign is translated into another sign of
known meaning, according to an established key. For example, I have
dreamt of a letter, and also of a funeral or the like; I consult a
“dream book,” and find that “letter” is to be translated by “vexation,”
and “funeral” by “marriage, engagement.” It now remains to establish a
connection, which I again am to assume pertains to the future, by means
of the rigmarole which I have deciphered. An interesting variation of
this cipher procedure, a variation by which its character of purely
mechanical transference is to a certain extent corrected, is presented
in the work on dream interpretation by Artemidoros of Daldis.[2] Here
not only the dream content, but also the personality and station in life
of the dreamer, are taken into consideration, so that the same dream
content has a significance for the rich man, the married man, or the
orator, which is different from that for the poor man, the unmarried
man, or, say, the merchant. The essential point, then, in this procedure
is that the work of interpretation is not directed to the entirety of
the dream, but to each portion of the dream content by itself, as though
the dream were a conglomeration, in which each fragment demands a
particular disposal. Incoherent and confused dreams are certainly the
ones responsible for the invention of the cipher method.[S]

The worthlessness of both these popular interpretation procedures for
the scientific treatment of the subject cannot be questioned for a
moment. The symbolic method is limited in its application and is capable
of no general demonstration. In the cipher method everything depends
upon whether the key, the dream book, is reliable, and for that all
guarantees are lacking. One might be tempted to grant the contention of
the philosophers and psychiatrists and to dismiss the problem of dream
interpretation as a fanciful one.

I have come, however, to think differently. I have been forced to admit
that here once more we have one of those not infrequent cases where an
ancient and stubbornly retained popular belief seems to have come nearer
to the truth of the matter than the judgment of the science which
prevails to-day. I must insist that the dream actually has significance,
and that a scientific procedure in dream interpretation is possible. I
have come upon the knowledge of this procedure in the following manner:—

For several years I have been occupied with the solution of certain
psychopathological structures in hysterical phobias, compulsive ideas,
and the like, for therapeutic purposes. I have been so occupied since
becoming familiar with an important report of Joseph Breuer to the
effect that in those structures, regarded as morbid symptoms, solution
and treatment go hand in hand.[T] Where it has been possible to trace
such a pathological idea back to the elements in the psychic life of the
patient to which it owes its origin, this idea has crumbled away, and
the patient has been relieved of it. In view of the failure of our other
therapeutic efforts, and in the face of the mysteriousness of these
conditions, it seems to me tempting, in spite of all difficulties, to
press forward on the path taken by Breuer until the subject has been
fully understood. We shall have elsewhere to make a detailed report upon
the form which the technique of this procedure has finally assumed, and
the results of the efforts which have been made. In the course of these
psychoanalytical studies, I happened upon dream interpretation. My
patients, after I had obliged them to inform me of all the ideas and
thoughts which came to them in connection with the given theme, related
their dreams, and thus taught me that a dream may be linked into the
psychic concatenation which must be followed backwards into the memory
from the pathological idea as a starting-point. The next step was to
treat the dream as a symptom, and to apply to it the method of
interpretation which had been worked out for such symptoms.

For this a certain psychic preparation of the patient is necessary. The
double effort is made with him, to stimulate his attention for his
psychic perceptions and to eliminate the critique with which he is
ordinarily in the habit of viewing the thoughts which come to the
surface in him. For the purpose of self-observation with concentrated
attention, it is advantageous that the patient occupy a restful position
and close his eyes; he must be explicitly commanded to resign the
critique of the thought-formations which he perceives. He must be told
further that the success of the psychoanalysis depends upon his noticing
and telling everything that passes through his mind, and that he must
not allow himself to suppress one idea because it seems to him
unimportant or irrelevant to the subject, or another because it seems
nonsensical. He must maintain impartiality towards his ideas; for it
would be owing to just this critique if he were unsuccessful in finding
the desired solution of the dream, the obsession, or the like.

I have noticed in the course of my psychoanalytic work that the state of
mind of a man in contemplation is entirely different from that of a man
who is observing his psychic processes. In contemplation there is a
greater play of psychic action than in the most attentive
self-observation; this is also shown by the tense attitude and wrinkled
brow of contemplation, in contrast with the restful features of
self-observation. In both cases, there must be concentration of
attention, but, besides this, in contemplation one exercises a critique,
in consequence of which he rejects some of the ideas which he has
perceived, and cuts short others, so that he does not follow the trains
of thought which they would open; toward still other thoughts he may act
in such a manner that they do not become conscious at all—that is to
say, they are suppressed before they are perceived. In self-observation,
on the other hand, one has only the task of suppressing the critique; if
he succeeds in this, an unlimited number of ideas, which otherwise would
have been impossible for him to grasp, come to his consciousness. With
the aid of this material, newly secured for the purpose of
self-observation, the interpretation of pathological ideas, as well as
of dream images, can be accomplished. As may be seen, the point is to
bring about a psychic state to some extent analogous as regards the
apportionment of psychic energy (transferable attention) to the state
prior to falling asleep (and indeed also to the hypnotic state). In
falling asleep, the “undesired ideas” come into prominence on account of
the slackening of a certain arbitrary (and certainly also critical)
action, which we allow to exert an influence upon the trend of our
ideas; we are accustomed to assign “fatigue” as the reason for this
slackening; the emerging undesired ideas as the reason are changed into
visual and acoustic images. (_Cf._ the remarks of Schleiermacher[61] and
others, p. 40.) In the condition which is used for the analysis of
dreams and pathological ideas, this activity is purposely and
arbitrarily dispensed with, and the psychic energy thus saved, or a part
of it, is used for the attentive following of the undesired thoughts now
coming to the surface, which retain their identity as ideas (this is the
difference from the condition of falling asleep). “Undesired ideas” are
thus changed into “desired” ones.

The suspension thus required of the critique for these apparently
“freely rising” ideas, which is here demanded and which is usually
exercised on them, is not easy for some persons. The “undesired ideas”
are in the habit of starting the most violent resistance, which seeks to
prevent them from coming to the surface. But if we may credit our great
poet-philosopher Friedrich Schiller, a very similar tolerance must be
the condition of poetic production. At a point in his correspondence
with Koerner, for the noting of which we are indebted to Mr. Otto Rank,
Schiller answers a friend who complains of his lack of creativeness in
the following words: “The reason for your complaint lies, it seems to
me, in the constraint which your intelligence imposes upon your
imagination. I must here make an observation and illustrate it by an
allegory. It does not seem beneficial, and it is harmful for the
creative work of the mind, if the intelligence inspects too closely the
ideas already pouring in, as it were, at the gates. Regarded by itself,
an idea may be very trifling and very adventurous, but it perhaps
becomes important on account of one which follows it; perhaps in a
certain connection with others, which may seem equally absurd, it is
capable of forming a very useful construction. The intelligence cannot
judge all these things if it does not hold them steadily long enough to
see them in connection with the others. In the case of a creative mind,
however, the intelligence has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, the
ideas rush in pell-mell, and it is only then that the great heap is
looked over and critically examined. Messrs. Critics, or whatever else
you may call yourselves, you are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and
transitory madness which is found in all creators, and whose longer or
shorter duration distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer.
Hence your complaints about barrenness, for you reject too soon and
discriminate too severely” (Letter of December 1, 1788).

And yet, “such a withdrawal of the watchers from the gates of
intelligence,” as Schiller calls it, such a shifting into the condition
of uncritical self-observation, is in no way difficult.

Most of my patients accomplish it after the first instructions; I myself
can do it very perfectly, if I assist the operation by writing down my
notions. The amount, in terms of psychic energy, by which the critical
activity is in this manner reduced, and by which the intensity of the
self-observation may be increased, varies widely according to the
subject matter upon which the attention is to be fixed.

The first step in the application of this procedure now teaches us that
not the dream as a whole, but only the parts of its contents separately,
may be made the object of our attention. If I ask a patient who is as
yet unpractised: “What occurs to you in connection with this dream?” as
a rule he is unable to fix upon anything in his psychic field of vision.
I must present the dream to him piece by piece, then for every fragment
he gives me a series of notions, which may be designated as the
“background thoughts” of this part of the dream. In this first and
important condition, then, the method of dream interpretation which I
employ avoids the popular, traditional method of interpretation by
symbolism famous in the legends, and approaches the second, the “cipher
method.” Like this one it is an interpretation in detail, not _en
masse_; like this it treats the dream from the beginning as something
put together—as a conglomeration of psychic images.

In the course of my psychoanalysis of neurotics, I have indeed already
subjected many thousand dreams to interpretation, but I do not now wish
to use this material in the introduction to the technique and theory of
dream interpretation. Quite apart from the consideration that I should
expose myself to the objection that these are dreams of neuropathic
subjects, the conclusions drawn from which would not admit of
reapplication to the dreams of healthy persons, another reason forces me
to reject them. The theme which is naturally always the subject of these
dreams, is the history of the disease which is responsible for the
neurosis. For this purpose there would be required a very long
introduction and an investigation into the nature and logical conditions
of psychoneuroses, things which are in themselves novel and unfamiliar
in the highest degree, and which would thus distract attention from the
dream problem. My purpose lies much more in the direction of preparing
the ground for a solution of difficult problems in the psychology of the
neuroses by means of the solution of dreams. But if I eliminate the
dreams of neurotics, I must not treat the remainder too
discriminatingly. Only those dreams still remain which have been
occasionally related to me by healthy persons of my acquaintance, or
which I find as examples in the literature of dream life. Unfortunately
in all these dreams the analysis is lacking, without which I cannot find
the meaning of the dream. My procedure is, of course, not as easy as
that of the popular cipher method, which translates the given dream
content according to an established key; I am much more prepared to find
that the same dream may cover a different meaning in the case of
different persons, and in a different connection I must then resort to
my own dreams, as an abundant and convenient material, furnished by a
person who is about normal, and having reference to many incidents of
everyday life. I shall certainly be with doubts as to the
trustworthiness of these “self-analyses.” Arbitrariness is here in no
way avoided. In my opinion, conditions are more likely to be favourable
in self-observation than in the observation of others; in any case, it
is permissible to see how much can be accomplished by means of
self-analysis. I must overcome further difficulties arising from inner
self. One has a readily understood aversion to exposing so many intimate
things from one’s own psychic life, and one does not feel safe from the
misinterpretation of strangers. But one must be able to put one’s self
beyond this. “Toute psychologiste,” writes Delbœuf,[26] “est obligé de
faire l’aveu même de ses faiblesses s’il croit par là jeter du jour sur
quelque problème obscure.” And I may assume that in the case of the
reader, the immediate interest in the indiscretions which I must commit
will very soon give way to exclusive engrossment in the psychological
problems which are illuminated by them.

I shall, therefore, select one of my own dreams and use it to elucidate
my method of interpretation. Every such dream necessitates a preliminary
statement. I must now beg the reader to make my interests his own for a
considerable time, and to become absorbed with me in the most trifling
details of my life, for an interest in the hidden significance of dreams
imperatively demands such transference.

Preliminary statement: In the summer of 1895 I had psychoanalytically
treated a young lady who stood in close friendship to me and those near
to me. It is to be understood that such a complication of relations may
be the source of manifold feelings for the physician, especially for the
psychotherapist. The personal interest of the physician is greater, his
authority is less. A failure threatens to undermine the friendship with
the relatives of the patient. The cure ended with partial success, the
patient got rid of her hysterical fear, but not of all her somatic
symptoms. I was at that time not yet sure of the criteria marking the
final settlement of a hysterical case, and expected her to accept a
solution which did not seem acceptable to her. In this disagreement, we
cut short the treatment on account of the summer season. One day a
younger colleague, one of my best friends, who had visited the
patient—Irma—and her family in their country resort, came to see me. I
asked him how he found her, and received the answer: “She is better, but
not altogether well.” I realise that those words of my friend Otto, or
the tone of voice in which they were spoken, made me angry. I thought I
heard a reproach in the words, perhaps to the effect that I had promised
the patient too much, and rightly or wrongly I traced Otto’s supposed
siding against me to the influence of the relatives of the patient, who,
I assume, had never approved of my treatment. Moreover, my disagreeable
impression did not become clear to me, nor did I give it expression. The
very same evening, I wrote down the history of Irma’s case, in order to
hand it, as though for my justification, to Dr. M., a mutual friend, who
was at that time a leading figure in our circle. During the night
following this evening (perhaps rather in the morning) I had the
following dream, which was registered immediately after waking:—

                       DREAM OF JULY 23–24, 1895

_A great hall—many guests whom we are receiving—among them Irma, whom I
immediately take aside, as though to answer her letter, to reproach her
for not yet accepting the “solution.” I say to her: “If you still have
pains, it is really only your own fault.” She answers: “If you only knew
what pains I now have in the neck, stomach, and abdomen; I am drawn
together.” I am frightened and look at her. She looks pale and bloated;
I think that after all I must be overlooking some organic affection. I
take her to the window and look into her throat. She shows some
resistance to this, like a woman who has a false set of teeth. I think
anyway she does not need them. The mouth then really opens without
difficulty and I find a large white spot to the right, and at another
place I see extended grayish-white scabs attached to curious curling
formations, which have obviously been formed like the turbinated bone—I
quickly call Dr. M., who repeats the examination and confirms it.... Dr.
M.’s looks are altogether unusual; he is very pale, limps, and has no
beard on his chin.... My friend Otto is now also standing next to her,
and my friend Leopold percusses her small body and says: “She has some
dulness on the left below,” and also calls attention to an infiltrated
portion of the skin on the left shoulder (something which I feel as he
does, in spite of the dress).... M. says: “No doubt it is an infection,
but it does not matter; dysentery will develop too, and the poison will
be excreted.... We also have immediate knowledge of the origin of the
infection. My friend Otto has recently given her an injection with a
propyl preparation when she felt ill, propyls.... Propionic acid ...
Trimethylamine (the formula of which I see printed before me in heavy
type).... Such injections are not made so rashly.... Probably also the
syringe was not clean.”_

This dream has an advantage over many others. It is at once clear with
what events of the preceding day it is connected, and what subject it
treats. The preliminary statement gives information on these points. The
news about Irma’s health which I have received from Otto, the history of
the illness upon which I have written until late at night, have occupied
my psychic activity even during sleep. In spite of all this, no one, who
has read the preliminary report and has knowledge of the content of the
dream, has been able to guess what the dream signifies. Nor do I myself
know. I wonder about the morbid symptoms, of which Irma complains in the
dream, for they are not the same ones for which I have treated her. I
smile about the consultation with Dr. M. I smile at the nonsensical idea
of an injection with propionic acid, and at the consolation attempted by
Dr. M. Towards the end the dream seems more obscure and more terse than
at the beginning. In order to learn the significance of all this, I am
compelled to undertake a thorough analysis.

                                ANALYSIS

_The hall—many guests, whom we are receiving._

We were living this summer at the Bellevue, in an isolated house on one
of the hills which lie close to the Kahlenberg. This house was once
intended as a place of amusement, and on this account has unusually
high, hall-like rooms. The dream also occurred at the Bellevue, a few
days before the birthday of my wife. During the day, my wife had
expressed the expectation that several friends, among them Irma, would
come to us as guests for her birthday. My dream, then, anticipates this
situation: It is the birthday of my wife, and many people, among them
Irma, are received by us as guests in the great hall of the Bellevue.

_I reproach Irma for not having accepted the solution. I say: “If you
still have pains, it is your own fault.”_

I might have said this also, or did say it, while awake. At that time I
had the opinion (recognised later to be incorrect) that my task was
limited to informing patients of the hidden meaning of their symptoms.
Whether they then accepted or did not accept the solution upon which
success depended—for that I was not responsible. I am thankful to this
error, which fortunately has now been overcome, for making life easier
for me at a time when, with all my unavoidable ignorance, I was to
produce successful cures. But I see in the speech which I make to Irma
in the dream, that above all things I do not want to be to blame for the
pains which she still feels. If it is Irma’s own fault, it cannot be
mine. Should the purpose of the dream be looked for in this quarter?

_Irma’s complaints; pains in the neck, abdomen, and stomach; she is
drawn together._

Pains in the stomach belonged to the symptom-complex of my patient, but
they were not very prominent; she complained rather of sensations of
nausea and disgust. Pains in the neck and abdomen and constriction of
the throat hardly played a part in her case. I wonder why I decided upon
this choice of symptoms, nor can I for the moment find the reason.

_She looks pale and bloated._

My patient was always ruddy. I suspect that another person is here being
substituted for her.

_I am frightened at the thought that I must have overlooked some organic
affection._

This, as the reader will readily believe, is a constant fear with the
specialist, who sees neurotics almost exclusively, and who is accustomed
to ascribe so many manifestations, which other physicians treat as
organic, to hysteria. On the other hand, I am haunted by a faint doubt—I
know not whence it comes—as to whether my fear is altogether honest. If
Irma’s pains are indeed of organic origin, I am not bound to cure them.
My treatment, of course, removes only hysterical pains. It seems to me,
in fact, that I wish to find an error in the diagnosis; in that case the
reproach of being unsuccessful would be removed.

_I take her to the window in order to look into her throat. She resists
a little, like a woman who has false teeth. I think she does not need
them anyway._

I had never had occasion to inspect Irma’s aural cavity. The incident in
the dream reminds me of an examination, made some time before, of a
governess who at first gave an impression of youthful beauty, but who
upon opening her mouth took certain measures for concealing her teeth.
Other memories of medical examinations and of little secrets which are
discovered by them, unpleasantly for both examiner and examined, connect
themselves with this case. “She does not need them anyway,” is at first
perhaps a compliment for Irma; but I suspect a different meaning. In
careful analysis one feels whether or not the “background thoughts”
which are to be expected have been exhausted. The way in which Irma
stands at the window suddenly reminds me of another experience. Irma
possesses an intimate woman friend, of whom I think very highly. One
evening on paying her a visit I found her in the position at the window
reproduced in the dream, and her physician, the same Dr. M., declared
that she had a diphtheritic membrane. The person of Dr. M. and the
membrane return in the course of the dream. Now it occurs to me that
during the last few months, I have been given every reason to suppose
that this lady is also hysterical. Yes, Irma herself has betrayed this
to me. But what do I know about her condition? Only the one thing, that
like Irma she suffers from hysterical choking in dreams. Thus in the
dream I have replaced my patient by her friend. Now I remember that I
have often trifled with the expectation that this lady might likewise
engage me to relieve her of her symptoms. But even at the time I thought
it improbable, for she is of a very shy nature. _She resists_, as the
dream shows. Another explanation might be that _she does not need it_;
in fact, until now she has shown herself strong enough to master her
condition without outside help. Now only a few features remain, which I
can assign neither to Irma nor to her friend: _Pale, bloated, false
teeth_. The false teeth lead me to the governess; I now feel inclined to
be satisfied with bad teeth. Then another person, to whom these features
may allude, occurs to me. She is not my patient, and I do not wish her
to be my patient, for I have noticed that she is not at her ease with
me, and I do not consider her a docile patient. She is generally pale,
and once, when she had a particularly good spell, she was bloated.[U] I
have thus compared my patient Irma with two others, who would likewise
resist treatment. What can it mean that I have exchanged her for her
friend in the dream? Perhaps that I wish to exchange her; either the
other one arouses in me stronger sympathies or I have a higher opinion
of her intelligence. For I consider Irma foolish because she does not
accept my solution. The other one would be more sensible, and would thus
be more likely to yield. _The mouth then really opens without
difficulty_; she would tell more than Irma.[V]

_What I see in the throat; a white spot and scabby nostrils._

The white spot recalls diphtheria, and thus Irma’s friend, but besides
this it recalls the grave illness of my eldest daughter two years before
and all the anxiety of that unfortunate time. The scab on the nostrils
reminds me of a concern about my own health. At that time I often used
cocaine in order to suppress annoying swellings in the nose, and had
heard a few days before that a lady patient who did likewise had
contracted an extensive necrosis of the nasal mucous membrane. The
recommendation of cocaine, which I had made in 1885, had also brought
grave reproaches upon me. A dear friend, already dead in 1895, had
hastened his end through the misuse of this remedy.

_I quickly call Dr. M., who repeats the examination._

This would simply correspond to the position which M. occupied among us.
But the word “quickly” is striking enough to demand a special
explanation. It reminds me of a sad medical experience. By the continued
prescription of a remedy (sulfonal) which was still at that time
considered harmless, I had once caused the severe intoxication of a
woman patient, and I had turned in great haste to an older, more
experienced colleague for assistance. The fact that I really had this
case in mind is confirmed by an accessory circumstance. The patient, who
succumbed to the intoxication, bore the same name as my eldest daughter.
I had never thought of this until now; now it seems to me almost like a
retribution of fate—as though I ought to continue the replacement of the
persons here in another sense; this Matilda for that Matilda; an eye for
an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It is as though I were seeking every
opportunity to reproach myself with lack of medical conscientiousness.

_Dr. M. is pale, without a beard on his chin, and he limps._

Of this so much is correct, that his unhealthy appearance often awakens
the concern of his friends. The other two characteristics must belong to
another person. A brother living abroad occurs to me, who wears his chin
clean-shaven, and to whom, if I remember aright, M. of the dream on the
whole bears some resemblance. About him the news arrived some days
before that he was lame on account of an arthritic disease in the hip.
There must be a reason why I fuse the two persons into one in the dream.
I remember that in fact I was on bad terms with both of them for similar
reasons. Both of them had rejected a certain proposal which I had
recently made to them.

_My friend Otto is now standing next to the sick woman, and my friend
Leopold examines her and calls attention to a dulness on the left
below._

My friend Leopold is also a physician, a relative of Otto. Since the two
practise the same specialty, fate has made them competitors, who are
continually being compared with each other. Both of them assisted me for
years, while I was still directing a public dispensary for nervous
children. Scenes like the one reproduced in the dream have often taken
place there. While I was debating with Otto about the diagnosis of a
case, Leopold had examined the child anew and had made an unexpected
contribution towards the decision. For there was a difference of
character between the two similar to that between Inspector Brassig and
his friend Charles. The one was distinguished for his brightness, the
other was slow, thoughtful, but thorough. If I contrast Otto and the
careful Leopold in the dream, I do it, apparently, in order to extol
Leopold. It is a comparison similar to the one above between the
disobedient patient Irma and her friend who is thought to be more
sensible. I now become aware of one of the tracks along which the
thought association of the dream progresses; from the sick child to the
children’s asylum. The dulness to the left, below, recalls a certain
case corresponding to it, in every detail in which Leopold astonished me
by his thoroughness. Besides this, I have a notion of something like a
metastatic affection, but it might rather be a reference to the lady
patient whom I should like to have instead of Irma. For this lady, as
far as I can gather, resembles a woman suffering from tuberculosis.

_An infiltrated portion of skin on the left shoulder._

I see at once that this is my own rheumatism of the shoulder, which I
always feel when I have remained awake until late at night. The turn of
phrase in the dream also sounds ambiguous; something which I feel ... in
spite of the dress. “Feel on my own body” is intended. Moreover, I am
struck with the unusual sound of the term “infiltrated portion of skin.”
“An infiltration behind on the upper left” is what we are accustomed to;
this would refer to the lung, and thus again to tuberculosis patients.

_In spite of the dress._

This, to be sure, is only an interpolation. We, of course, examine the
children in the clinic undressed; it is some sort of contradiction to
the manner in which grown-up female patients must be examined. The story
used to be told of a prominent clinician that he always examined his
patients physically only through the clothes. The rest is obscure to me;
I have, frankly, no inclination to follow the matter further.

_Dr. M. says: “It is an infection, but it does not matter. Dysentery
will develop, and the poison will he excreted._”

This at first seems ridiculous to me; still it must be carefully
analysed like everything else. Observed more closely, it seems, however,
to have a kind of meaning. What I had found in the patient was local
diphtheritis. I remember the discussion about diphtheritis and
diphtheria at the time of my daughter’s illness. The latter is the
general infection which proceeds from local diphtheritis. Leopold proves
the existence of such general infection by means of the dulness, which
thus suggests a metastatic lesion. I believe, however, that just this
kind of metastasis does not occur in the case of diphtheria. It rather
recalls pyæmia.

_It does not matter_, is a consolation. I believe it fits in as follows:
The last part of the dream has yielded a content to the effect that the
pains of the patient are the result of a serious organic affection. I
begin to suspect that with this I am only trying to shift the blame from
myself. Psychic treatment cannot be held responsible for the continued
presence of diphtheritic affection. But now, in turn, I am disturbed at
inventing such serious suffering for Irma for the sole purpose of
exculpating myself. It seems cruel. I need (accordingly) the assurance
that the result will be happy, and it does not seem ill-advised that I
should put the words of consolation into the mouth of Dr. M. But here I
consider myself superior to the dream, a fact which needs explanation.

But why is this consolation so nonsensical?

_Dysentery_:

Some sort of far-fetched theoretical notion that pathological material
may be removed through the intestines. Am I in this way trying to make
fun of Dr. M.’s great store of far-fetched explanations, his habit of
finding curious pathological relationships? Dysentery suggests something
else. A few months ago I had in charge a young man suffering from
remarkable pains during evacuation of the bowels, a case which
colleagues had treated as “anæmia with malnutrition.” I realised that it
was a question of hysteria; I was unwilling to use my psychotherapy on
him, and sent him off on a sea voyage. Now a few days before I had
received a despairing letter from him from Egypt, saying that while
there he had suffered a new attack, which the physician had declared to
be dysentery. I suspect, indeed, that the diagnosis was only an error of
my ignorant colleague, who allows hysteria to make a fool of him; but
still I cannot avoid reproaching myself for putting the invalid in a
position where he might contract an organic affection of the bowels in
addition to his hysteria. Furthermore, dysentery sounds like diphtheria,
a word which does not occur in the dream.

Indeed it must be that, with the consoling prognosis: “Dysentery will
develop, &c.,” I am making fun of Dr. M., for I recollect that years ago
he once jokingly told a very similar story of another colleague. He had
been called to consult with this colleague in the case of a woman who
was very seriously ill and had felt obliged to confront the other
physician, who seemed very hopeful, with the fact that he found albumen
in the patient’s urine. The colleague, however, did not let this worry
him, but answered calmly: “That does not matter, doctor; the albumen
will without doubt be excreted.” Thus I can no longer doubt that
derision for those colleagues who are ignorant of hysteria is contained
in this part of the dream. As though in confirmation, this question now
arises in my mind: “Does Dr. M. know that the symptoms of his patient,
of our friend Irma, which give cause for fearing tuberculosis, are also
based on hysteria? Has he recognised this hysteria, or has he stupidly
ignored it?”

But what can be my motive in treating this friend so badly? This is very
simple: Dr. M. agrees with my solution as little as Irma herself. I have
thus already in this dream taken revenge on two persons, on Irma in the
words, “If you still have pains, it is your own fault,” and on Dr. M. in
the wording of the nonsensical consolation which has been put into his
mouth.

_We have immediate knowledge of the origin of the infection._

This immediate knowledge in the dream is very remarkable. Just before we
did not know it, since the infection was first demonstrated by Leopold.

_My friend Otto has recently given her an injection when she felt ill._

Otto had actually related that in the short time of his visit to Irma’s
family, he had been called to a neighbouring hotel in order to give an
injection to some one who fell suddenly ill. Injections again recall the
unfortunate friend who has poisoned himself with cocaine. I had
recommended the remedy to him merely for internal use during the
withdrawal of morphine, but he once gave himself injections of cocaine.

_With a propyl preparation ... propyls ... propionic acid._ How did this
ever occur to me? On the same evening on which I had written part of the
history of the disease before having the dream, my wife opened a bottle
of cordial labelled “Ananas,”[W] (which was a present from our friend
Otto. For he had a habit of making presents on every possible occasion;
I hope he will some day be cured of this by a wife).[X] Such a smell of
fusel oil arose from this cordial that I refused to taste it. My wife
observed: “We will give this bottle to the servants,” and I, still more
prudent, forbade it, with the philanthropic remark: “They mustn’t be
poisoned either.” The smell of fusel oil (amyl ...) has now apparently
awakened in my memory the whole series, propyl, methyl, &c., which has
furnished the propyl preparation of the dream. In this, it is true, I
have employed a substitution; I have dreamt of propyl, after smelling
amyl, but substitutions of this kind are perhaps permissible, especially
in organic chemistry.

_Trimethylamin._ I see the chemical formula of this substance in the
dream, a fact which probably gives evidence of a great effort on the
part of my memory, and, moreover, the formula is printed in heavy type,
as if to lay special stress upon something of particular importance, as
distinguished from the context. To what does this trimethylamin lead,
which has been so forcibly called to my attention? It leads to a
conversation with another friend who for years has known all my
germinating activities, as I have his. At that time he had just informed
me of some of his ideas about sexual chemistry, and had mentioned, among
others, that he thought he recognised in trimethylamin one of the
products of sexual metabolism. This substance thus leads me to
sexuality, to that factor which I credit with the greatest significance
for the origin of the nervous affections which I attempt to cure. My
patient Irma is a young widow; if I am anxious to excuse the failure of
her cure, I suppose I shall best do so by referring to this condition,
which her admirers would be glad to change. How remarkably, too, such a
dream is fashioned! The other woman, whom I take as my patient in the
dream instead of Irma, is also a young widow.

I suspect why the formula of trimethylamin has made itself so prominent
in the dream. So many important things are gathered up in this one word:
Trimethylamin is not only an allusion to the overpowering factor of
sexuality, but also to a person whose sympathy I remember with
satisfaction when I feel myself forsaken in my opinions. Should not this
friend, who plays such a large part in my life, occur again in the chain
of thoughts of the dream? Of course, he must; he is particularly
acquainted with the results which proceed from affections of the nose
and its adjacent cavities, and has revealed to science several highly
remarkable relations of the turbinated bones to the female sexual organs
(the three curly formations in Irma’s throat). I have had Irma examined
by him to see whether the pains in her stomach might be of nasal origin.
But he himself suffers from suppurative rhinitis, which worries him, and
to this perhaps there is an allusion in pyæmia, which hovers before me
in the metastases of the dream.

_Such injections are not made so rashly._ Here the reproach of
carelessness is hurled directly at my friend Otto. I am under the
impression that I had some thought of this sort in the afternoon, when
he seemed to indicate his siding against me by word and look. It was
perhaps: “How easily he can be influenced; how carelessly he pronounces
judgment.” Furthermore, the above sentence again points to my deceased
friend, who so lightly took refuge in cocaine injections. As I have
said, I had not intended injections of the remedy at all. I see that in
reproaching Otto I again touch upon the story of the unfortunate
Matilda, from which arises the same reproach against me. Obviously I am
here collecting examples of my own conscientiousness, but also of the
opposite.

_Probably also the syringe was not clean._ Another reproach directed at
Otto, but originating elsewhere. The day before I happened to meet the
son of a lady eighty-two years of age whom I am obliged to give daily
two injections of morphine. At present she is in the country, and I have
heard that she is suffering from an inflammation of the veins. I
immediately thought that it was a case of infection due to contamination
from the syringe. It is my pride that in two years I have not given her
a single infection; I am constantly concerned, of course, to see that
the syringe is perfectly clean. For I am conscientious. From the
inflammation of the veins, I return to my wife, who had suffered from
emboli during a period of pregnancy, and now three related situations
come to the surface in my memory, involving my wife, Irma, and the
deceased Matilda, the identity of which three persons plainly justifies
my putting them in one another’s place.

I have now completed the interpretation of the dream.[Y] In the course
of this interpretation I have taken great pains to get possession of all
the notions to which a comparison between the dream content and the
dream thoughts hidden behind it must have given rise. Meanwhile, the
“meaning” of the dream has dawned upon me. I have become conscious of a
purpose which is realised by means of the dream, and which must have
been the motive for dreaming. The dream fulfils several wishes, which
have been actuated in me by the events of the preceding evening (Otto’s
news, and the writing down of the history of the disease). For the
result of the dream is that I am not to blame for the suffering which
Irma still has, and that Otto is to blame for it. Now Otto has made me
angry by his remark about Irma’s imperfect cure; the dream avenges me
upon him by turning the reproach back upon himself. The dream acquits me
of responsibility for Irma’s condition by referring it to other causes,
which indeed furnish a great number of explanations. The dream
represents a certain condition of affairs as I should wish it to be;
_the content of the dream is thus the fulfilment of a wish; its motive
is a wish_.

This much is apparent at first sight. But many things in the details of
the dream become intelligible when regarded from the point of view of
wish-fulfilment. I take revenge on Otto, not only for hastily taking
part against me, in that I accuse him of a careless medical operation
(the injection), but I am also avenged on him for the bad cordial which
smells like fusel oil, and I find an expression in the dream which
unites both reproaches; the injection with a preparation of propyl.
Still I am not satisfied, but continue my revenge by comparing him to
his more reliable competitor. I seem to say by this: “I like him better
than you.” But Otto is not the only one who must feel the force of my
anger. I take revenge on the disobedient patient by exchanging her for a
more sensible, more docile one. Nor do I leave the contradiction of Dr.
M. unnoticed, but express my opinion of him in an obvious allusion, to
the effect that his relation to the question is that of _an ignoramus_
(“_dysentery will develop_,” _&c._).

It seems to me, indeed, as though I were appealing from him to some one
better informed (my friend, who has told me about trimethylamin); just
as I have turned from Irma to her friend, I turn from Otto to Leopold.
Rid me of these three persons, replace them by three others of my own
choice, and I shall be released from the reproaches which I do not wish
to have deserved! The unreasonableness itself of these reproaches is
proved to me in the dream in the most elaborate way. Irma’s pains are
not charged to me, because she herself is to blame for them, in that she
refuses to accept my solution. Irma’s pains are none of my business, for
they are of an organic nature, quite impossible to be healed by a
psychic cure. Irma’s sufferings are satisfactorily explained by her
widowhood (trimethylamin!); a fact which, of course, I cannot alter.
Irma’s illness has been caused by an incautious injection on the part of
Otto, with an ill-suited substance—in a way I should never have made an
injection. Irma’s suffering is the result of an injection made with an
unclean syringe, just like the inflammation of the veins in my old lady,
while I never do any such mischief with my injections. I am aware,
indeed, that these explanations of Irma’s illness, which unite in
acquitting me, do not agree with one another; they even exclude one
another. The whole pleading—this dream is nothing else—recalls vividly
the defensive argument of a man who was accused by his neighbour of
having returned a kettle to him in a damaged condition. In the first
place, he said, he had returned the kettle undamaged; in the second, it
already had holes in it when he borrowed it; and thirdly, he had never
borrowed the kettle from his neighbour at all. But so much the better;
if even one of these three methods of defence is recognised as valid,
the man must be acquitted.

Still other subjects mingle in the dream, whose relation to my release
from responsibility for Irma’s illness is not so transparent: the
illness of my daughter and that of a patient of the same name, the
harmfulness of cocaine, the illness of my patient travelling in Egypt,
concern about the health of my wife, my brother, of Dr. M., my own
bodily troubles, and concern about the absent friend who is suffering
from suppurative rhinitis. But if I keep all these things in view, they
combine into a single train of thought, labelled perhaps: Concern for
the health of myself and others—professional conscientiousness. I recall
an undefined disagreeable sensation as Otto brought me the news of
Irma’s condition. I should like to note finally the expression of this
fleeting sensation, which is part of the train of thought that is
mingled into the dream. It is as though Otto had said to me: “You do not
take your physician’s duties seriously enough, you are not
conscientious, do not keep your promises.” Thereupon this train of
thought placed itself at my service in order that I might exhibit proof
of the high degree in which I am conscientious, how intimately I am
concerned with the health of my relatives, friends, and patients.
Curiously enough, there are also in this thought material some painful
memories, which correspond rather to the blame attributed to Otto than
to the accusation against me. The material has the appearance of being
impartial, but the connection between this broader material, upon which
the dream depends, and the more limited theme of the dream which gives
rise to the wish to be innocent of Irma’s illness, is nevertheless
unmistakable.

I do not wish to claim that I have revealed the meaning of the dream
entirely, or that the interpretation is flawless.

I could still spend much time upon it; I could draw further explanations
from it, and bring up new problems which it bids us consider. I even
know the points from which further thought associations might be traced;
but such considerations as are connected with every dream of one’s own
restrain me from the work of interpretation. Whoever is ready to condemn
such reserve, may himself try to be more straightforward than I. I am
content with the discovery which has been just made. If the method of
dream interpretation here indicated is followed, it will be found that
the dream really has meaning, and is by no means the expression of
fragmentary brain activity, which the authors would have us believe.
_When the work of interpretation has been completed the dream may be
recognised as the fulfilment of a wish._

                 THE DREAM IS THE FULFILMENT OF A WISH

When after passing a defile one has reached an eminence where the ways
part and where the view opens out broadly in different directions, it is
permissible to stop for a moment and to consider where one is to turn
next. Something like this happens to us after we have mastered this
first dream interpretation. We find ourselves in the open light of a
sudden cognition. The dream is not comparable to the irregular sounds of
a musical instrument, which, instead of being touched by the hand of the
musician, is struck by some outside force; the dream is not senseless,
not absurd, does not presuppose that a part of our store of ideas is
dormant while another part begins to awaken. It is a psychic phenomenon
of full value, and indeed the fulfilment of a wish; it takes its place
in the concatenation of the waking psychic actions which are
intelligible to us, and it has been built up by a highly complicated
intellectual activity. But at the very moment when we are inclined to
rejoice in this discovery, a crowd of questions overwhelms us. If the
dream, according to the interpretation, represents a wish fulfilled,
what is the cause of the peculiar and unfamiliar manner in which this
fulfilment is expressed? What changes have occurred in the dream
thoughts before they are transformed into the manifest dream which we
remember upon awaking? In what manner has this transformation taken
place? Whence comes the material which has been worked over into the
dream? What causes the peculiarities which we observe in the dream
thoughts, for example, that they may contradict one another? (The
analogy of the kettle, p. 87). Is the dream capable of teaching us
something new about our inner psychic processes, and can its content
correct opinions which we have held during the day? I suggest that for
the present all these questions be laid aside, and that a single path be
pursued. We have found that the dream represents a wish as fulfilled. It
will be our next interest to ascertain whether this is a universal
characteristic of the dream, or only the accidental content of the dream
(“of Irma’s injection”) with which we have begun our analysis, for even
if we make up our minds that every dream has a meaning and psychic
value, we must nevertheless allow for the possibility that this meaning
is not the same in every dream. The first dream we have considered was
the fulfilment of a wish; another may turn out to be a realised
apprehension; a third may have a reflection as to its content; a fourth
may simply reproduce a reminiscence. Are there then other wish dreams;
or are there possibly nothing but wish dreams?

It is easy to show that the character of wish-fulfilment in dreams is
often undisguised and recognisable, so that one may wonder why the
language of dreams has not long since been understood. There is, for
example, a dream which I can cause as often as I like, as it were
experimentally. If in the evening I eat anchovies, olives, or other
strongly salted foods, I become thirsty at night, whereupon I waken. The
awakening, however, is preceded by a dream, which each time has the same
content, namely, that I am drinking. I quaff water in long draughts, it
tastes as sweet as only a cool drink can taste when one’s throat is
parched, and then I awake and have an actual desire to drink. The
occasion for this dream is thirst, which I perceive when I awake. The
wish to drink originates from this sensation, and the dream shows me
this wish as fulfilled. It thereby serves a function the nature of which
I soon guess. I sleep well, and am not accustomed to be awakened by a
bodily need. If I succeed in assuaging my thirst by means of the dream
that I am drinking, I need not wake up in order to satisfy it. It is
thus a dream of convenience. The dream substitutes itself for action, as
elsewhere in life. Unfortunately the need of water for quenching thirst
cannot be satisfied with a dream, like my thirst for revenge upon Otto
and Dr. M., but the intention is the same. This same dream recently
appeared in modified form. On this occasion I became thirsty before
going to bed, and emptied the glass of water which stood on the little
chest next to my bed. Several hours later in the night came a new attack
of thirst, accompanied by discomfort. In order to obtain water, I should
have had to get up and fetch the glass which stood on the night-chest of
my wife. I thus quite appropriately dreamt that my wife was giving me a
drink from a vase; this vase was an Etruscan cinerary urn which I had
brought home from an Italian journey and had since given away. But the
water in it tasted so salty (apparently from the ashes) that I had to
wake. It may be seen how conveniently the dream is capable of arranging
matters; since the fulfilment of a wish is its only purpose, it may be
perfectly egotistic. Love of comfort is really not compatible with
consideration for others. The introduction of the cinerary urn is
probably again the fulfilment of a wish; I am sorry that I no longer
possess this vase; it, like the glass of water at my wife’s side, is
inaccessible to me. The cinerary urn is also appropriate to the
sensation of a salty taste which has now grown stronger, and which I
know will force me to wake up.[Z]

Such convenience dreams were very frequent with me in the years of my
youth. Accustomed as I had always been to work until late at night,
early awakening was always a matter of difficulty for me. I used then to
dream that I was out of bed and was standing at the wash-stand. After a
while I could not make myself admit that I have not yet got up, but
meanwhile I had slept for a time. I am acquainted with the same dream of
laziness as dreamt by a young colleague of mine, who seems to share my
propensity for sleep. The lodging-house keeper with whom he was living
in the neighbourhood of the hospital had strict orders to wake him on
time every morning, but she certainly had a lot of trouble when she
tried to carry out his orders. One morning sleep was particularly sweet.
The woman called into the room: “Mr. Joe, get up; you must go to the
hospital.” Whereupon the sleeper dreamt of a room in the hospital, a bed
in which he was lying, and a chart pinned over his head reading: “Joe
H.... cand. med. 22 years old.” He said to himself in the dream: “If I
am already at the hospital, I don’t have to go there,” turned over and
slept on. He had thus frankly admitted to himself his motive for
dreaming.

Here is another dream, the stimulus for which acts during sleep itself:
One of my women patients, who had had to undergo an unsuccessful
operation on the jaw, was to wear a cooling apparatus on the affected
cheek, according to the orders of the physicians. But she was in the
habit of throwing it off as soon as she had got to sleep. One day I was
asked to reprove her for doing so; for she had again thrown the
apparatus on the floor. The patient defended herself as follows: “This
time I really couldn’t help it; it was the result of a dream which I had
in the night. In the dream, I was in a box at the opera and was taking a
lively interest in the performance. But Mr. Karl Meyer was lying in the
sanatorium and complaining pitifully on account of pains in his jaw. I
said to myself, ‘Since I haven’t the pains, I don’t need the apparatus
either,’ that’s why I threw it away.” This dream of the poor sufferer is
similar to the idea in the expression which comes to our lips when we
are in a disagreeable situation: “I know something that’s a great deal
more fun.” The dream presents this great deal more fun. Mr. Karl Meyer,
to whom the dreamer attributed her pains, was the most indifferent young
man of her acquaintance whom she could recall.

It is no more difficult to discover the fulfilment of wishes in several
dreams which I have collected from healthy persons. A friend who knew my
theory of dreams and had imparted it to his wife, said to me one day:
“My wife asked me to tell you that she dreamt yesterday that she was
having her menses. You will know what that means.” Of course I know: if
the young wife dreams that she is having her menses, the menses have
stopped. I can understand that she would have liked to enjoy her freedom
for a time longer before the discomforts of motherhood began. It was a
clever way of giving notice of her first pregnancy. Another friend
writes that his wife had recently dreamt that she noticed milk stains on
the bosom of her waist. This is also an indication of pregnancy, but
this time not of the first one; the young mother wishes to have more
nourishment for the second child than she had for the first.

A young woman, who for weeks had been cut off from company because she
was nursing a child that was suffering from an infectious disease,
dreams, after its safe termination, of a company of people in which A.
Daudet, Bourget, M. Prevost, and others are present, all of whom are
very pleasant to her and entertain her admirably. The different authors
in the dream also have the features which their pictures give them. M.
Prevost, with whose picture she is not familiar, looks like—the
disinfecting man who on the previous day had cleaned the sick rooms and
had entered them as the first visitor after a long period. Apparently
the dream might be perfectly translated thus: “It is about time now for
something more entertaining than this eternal nursing.”

Perhaps this selection will suffice to prove that often and under the
most complex conditions dreams are found which can be understood only as
fulfilments of wishes, and which present their contents without
concealment. In most cases these are short and simple dreams, which
stand in pleasant contrast to the confused and teeming dream
compositions which have mainly attracted the attention of the authors.
But it will pay to spend some time upon these simple dreams. The most
simple dreams of all, I suppose, are to be expected in the case of
children, whose psychic activities are certainly less complicated than
those of adults. The psychology of children, in my opinion, is to be
called upon for services similar to those which a study of the anatomy
and development of the lower animals renders to the investigation of the
structure of the highest classes of animals. Until now only a few
conscious efforts have been made to take advantage of the psychology of
children for such a purpose.

The dreams of little children are simple fulfilments of wishes, and as
compared, therefore, with the dreams of adults, are not at all
interesting. They present no problem to be solved, but are naturally
invaluable as affording proof that the dream in its essence signifies
the fulfilment of a wish. I have been able to collect several examples
of such dreams from the material furnished by my own children.

For two dreams, one of my daughters, at that time eight and a half years
old, the other of a boy five and a quarter years of age, I am indebted
to an excursion to the beautiful Hallstatt in the summer of 1896. I must
make the preliminary statement that during this summer we were living on
a hill near Aussee, from which, when the weather was good, we enjoyed a
splendid view of the Dachstein from the roof of our house. The Simony
Hut could easily be recognised with a telescope. The little ones often
tried to see it through the telescope—I do not know with what success.
Before the excursion I had told the children that Hallstatt lay at the
foot of the Dachstein. They looked forward to the day with great joy.
From Hallstatt we entered the valley of Eschern, which highly pleased
the children with its varying aspects. One of them, however, the boy of
five, gradually became discontented. As often as a mountain came in
view, he would ask: “Is that the Dachstein?” whereupon I would have to
answer: “No, only a foot-hill.” After this question had been repeated