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
(_f_) _The dreamer was climbing a mountain from which he had a
remarkably wide view._ This sounds most reasonable; perhaps no
interpretation is called for and we have only to find out what
recollection is referred to in the dream, and what had aroused it. No,
you are mistaken; it comes out that this dream needed interpretation
just as much as any other, more confused. For the dreamer remembers
nothing about mountain-climbing himself; instead, it occurs to him that
an acquaintance is publishing a _Rundschau_ (Review), on the subject of
our relations with the most distant parts of the earth: hence, the
latent thought is one in which the dreamer identifies himself with the
“_reviewer_” (lit. one who takes a survey).
Here you come across a new type of relation between the manifest and the
latent element in dreams. The former is not so much a distortion of the
latter as a representation—a plastic, concrete piece of imagery,
originating in the sound of a word. It is true that this amounts in
effect to a distortion, for we have long forgotten from what concrete
image the word sprang, and hence fail to recognize it when that image is
substituted for it. When you consider that the manifest dream consists
of visual images in by far the greatest number of cases, and less
frequently of thoughts and words, you will easily realize that this kind
of relation between the manifest and the latent has a special
significance in the structure of dreams. You see too that in this way it
becomes possible for a long series of abstract thoughts to create
substitute-images in the manifest dream which do indeed serve the
purpose of concealment. This is how our picture-puzzles are made up. The
source of the semblance of wit which goes with this type of
representation is a special question which we need not touch on here.
There is a fourth kind of relation between the manifest and the latent
elements which I will say nothing about until the time comes for it in
my account of our technique. Even then I shall not have given you a full
list of these possible relations, but we shall have sufficient for our
purpose.
Now do you think you can summon up courage to venture on the
interpretation of a whole dream? Let us see whether we are adequately
equipped for the task. I shall not, of course, choose one of the most
obscure, but all the same it shall be one which shows the
characteristics of dreams in a well-marked form.
A young woman who had already been married for a number of years dreamt
as follows: _She was at the theatre with her husband, and one side of
the stalls was quite empty. Her husband told her that Elise L. and her
fiancé also wanted to come, but could only get bad seats, three for a
florin and a half, and of course they could not take those. She replied
that in her opinion they did not lose much by that._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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