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
If the evil impulses of our dreams are merely infantile, a reversion to
the beginnings of our ethical development, the dream simply making us
children again in thought and feeling, it is surely not reasonable to be
ashamed of these evil dreams. But the reasoning faculty is only part of
our mental life; there is much in it besides which is not reasonable,
and so it happens that, although it is unreasonable, we nevertheless are
ashamed of such dreams. We subject them to the dream-censorship and are
ashamed and indignant when one of these wishes by way of exception
penetrates our consciousness in a form so undisguised that we cannot
fail to recognize it; yes, we even at times feel just as much ashamed of
a distorted dream as if we really understood it. Just think of the
outraged comment of the respectable elderly lady upon her dream about
“love service,” although it was not interpreted to her. So the problem
is not yet solved, and it is still possible that if we pursue this
question of the evil in dreams we may arrive at another conclusion and
another estimate of human nature.
Our whole enquiry has led to two results which, however, merely indicate
the beginning of new problems and new doubts. In the first place: the
regression in dreams is one not only of form but of substance. Not only
does it translate our thoughts into a primitive form of expression, but
it also re-awakens the peculiarities of our primitive mental life—the
old supremacy of the ego, the initial impulses of our sexual life, even
restores to us our old intellectual possession if we may conceive of
symbolism in this way. And secondly: all these old infantile
characteristics, which were once dominant and solely dominant, must
to-day be accounted to the unconscious and must alter and extend our
views about it. “Unconscious” is no longer a term for what is
temporarily latent: the unconscious is a special realm, with its own
desires and modes of expression and peculiar mental mechanisms not
elsewhere operative. Yet the latent dream-thoughts disclosed by our
interpretation do not belong to this realm; rather they correspond to
the kind of thoughts we have in waking life also. And yet they are
unconscious: how is the paradox to be resolved? We begin to realize that
here we must discriminate. Something which has its origin in our
conscious life and shares its characteristics—we call it the “residue”
from the previous day—meets together with something from the realm of
the unconscious in the formation of a dream, and it is with these two
contributing elements that the dream-work is accomplished. The influence
of the unconscious impinging upon this residue probably constitutes the
condition for regression. This is the deepest insight into the nature of
dreams possible to us until we have explored further fields in the mind;
but soon it will be time to give another name to the unconscious
character of the latent dream-thoughts, in order to distinguish it from
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