Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis : $b a course of twenty-eight lectures delivered at the University of ViennaFreud, Sigmund
Science
Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis : $b a course of twenty-eight lectures delivered at the University of Vienna
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
(_a_) _She was going through the hall in her house and struck her head
on a low-hanging chandelier with such force as to draw blood._ This
episode did not remind her of anything that had actually happened; her
remarks led in quite another direction: “You know how terribly my hair
is coming out. Well, yesterday my mother said to me: ‘My dear child, if
it goes on like this, your head will soon be as bald as your buttocks.’”
We see here that the head stands for the other end of the body. No
further assistance is required to understand the symbolism of the
chandelier: all objects capable of elongation are symbols of the male
organ. The real subject of the dream then is a bleeding at the lower end
of the body, caused by contact with the penis. This might still have
other meanings; the dreamer’s further associations show that the dream
has to do with the belief that menstruation results from sexual
intercourse with a man, a notion about sexual matters which is by no
means uncommon amongst immature girls.
(_b_) _The dreamer saw in a vineyard a deep hole which she knew had been
caused by the uprooting of a tree._ Her remark on this point was that
“the tree was _missing_,” meaning that she did not see the tree in the
dream; but the same phrase serves to express another thought, which
leaves us in no doubt as to the symbolic interpretation. The dream
refers to another infantile notion on the subject of sex, to the belief
that girls originally had the same genital organ as boys and that the
later conformation of this organ has been brought about by castration
(uprooting the tree).
(_c_) _The dreamer was standing in front of her writing-table drawer
which she knows so well that, if anyone touched it, she would
immediately be aware of it._ The writing-table drawer, like all drawers,
chests and boxes, is a symbol of the female genital. She knew that when
sexual intercourse (or, as she thought, any contact at all) has taken
place the genital shows certain indications of the fact, and she had
long had a fear of being convicted of this. I think that in all three
dreams the main emphasis lies on the idea of _knowing_. She had in mind
the time of childish investigations into sexual matters, of the results
of which she had been very proud at the time.
5. Here is another example of symbolism. But this time I must preface it
with a short account of the mental situation in which the dream
occurred. A man and a woman who were in love had spent a night together;
he described her nature as maternal, she was one of those women whose
desire to have a child comes out irresistibly during caresses. The
conditions of their meeting, however, made it necessary to take
precautions to prevent the semen from entering the womb. On waking the
next morning, the woman related the following dream:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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