Only because of these successes was I in condition to persevere. I have, therefore, acquired the habit of measuring the grasp of a psychological worker by his attitude to the problem of dream interpretation, and I have noticed, with satisfaction, that most of the opponents of psychoanalysis avoided this field altogether, or if they ventured into it, they behaved most awkwardly. The analysis of myself, the need of which soon became apparent to me, I carried out by the aid of a series of my own dreams which led me through all the happenings of my childhood years. Even today I am of the opinion that in the case of a prolific dreamer and a person not too abnormal, this sort of analysis may be sufficient. By unfurling this developmental history, I believe I have shown what psychoanalysis is, better than I could have done by a systematic presentation of the subject. The special nature of my findings I did not then recognize. I sacrificed, unhesitatingly, my budding popularity as a physician and an extensive practice among nervous patients, because I searched directly for the sexual origin of their neuroses. In this way I gained a number of experiences which definitely confirmed my conviction of the practical significance of the sexual factor. Without any apprehension, I appeared as speaker at the Vienna Neurological Society, then under the presidency of Krafft-Ebing, expecting to be compensated, by the interest and recognition of my colleagues, for my own voluntary sacrifices. I treated my discoveries as indifferent contributions to science and hoped that others would treat them in the same way. Only the silence that followed my lectures, the space that formed about my person, and the insinuations directed towards me caused me to realize, gradually, that statements about the part played by sexuality in the etiology of the neuroses cannot hope to be treated like other communications. I realized that from then on I would belong to those who, according to Hebbel’s expression, “have disturbed the world’s sleep,” and that I could not count upon being treated objectively and with toleration. But as my conviction of the average correctness of my observations and the conclusions grew greater and greater, and as my faith in my own judgment was not small, any more than was my moral courage, there could be no doubt as to the issue of this situation. I decided to believe that it fell to my lot to discover particularly significant associations, and felt prepared to bear the fate which sometimes accompanies such discoveries.