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
When stress is laid upon the fact that people in a dream are unknown to
the dreamer, or that he has forgotten their names, they are, as a rule,
persons with whom he is intimately connected. The dreamer was one of a
family of three children; if he had ever wished for the death of the
other two, it would be only just that he should be visited with the fear
of death. With reference to the telegraph messenger, he remarked that
they always bring bad news. From his uniform, the man in the dream might
have been a lamp-lighter, who also puts out the lights, as the spirit of
death extinguishes the torch of life. With the coachman he associated
Uhland’s poem of the voyage of King Karl, and recalled a dangerous sail
on a lake with two companions, when he played the part of the king in
the poem. The iron bridge suggested to him a recent accident, also the
stupid saying: “Life is a suspension bridge.”
11. The following may be regarded as another example of a death-dream:—
_An unknown gentleman was leaving a black-edged visiting card on the
dreamer._
12. I give another dream which will interest you from several points of
view; it is to be traced partly, however, to a neurotic condition in the
dreamer:—
_He was in a train which stopped in the open country. He thought there
was going to be an accident and that he must make his escape, so he went
through all the compartments, killing everyone he met,—driver, guard,
and so on._
This dream recalls a story told him by a friend. On a certain Italian
line, an insane man was being conveyed in a small compartment, but by
some mistake a passenger was allowed to get in with him. The madman
murdered the other traveller. Thus the dreamer identified himself with
this insane man, his reason being that he was at times tormented by an
obsession that he must make away with “everyone who shared his
knowledge.” Then he himself found a better motivation for the dream. The
day before, he had seen at the theatre a girl he had meant to marry but
had given up because she gave him cause for jealousy. Knowing the
intensity which jealousy could assume in him, he would really have been
mad to want to marry her. That is to say, he thought her so unreliable
that his jealousy would have led him to murder everyone who got in his
way. The going through a number of rooms, or, as here, compartments, we
have already learnt to know as a symbol of marriage (the expression of
monogamy according to the rule of opposites).
With reference to the train’s stopping in the open country and the fear
of an accident, he told the following story:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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