The other motive for counter wish-dreams is so clear that there is
danger of overlooking it, as for some time happened in my own case. In
the sexual make-up of many people there is a masochistic component,
which has arisen through the conversion of the aggressive, sadistic
component into its opposite. Such people are called “ideal” masochists,
if they seek pleasure not in the bodily pain which may be inflicted upon
them, but in humiliation and in chastisement of the soul. It is obvious
that such persons can have counter wish-dreams and disagreeable dreams,
which, however, for them are nothing but wish-fulfilments, affording
satisfaction for their masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream. A
young man, who has in earlier years tormented his elder brother, towards
whom he was homosexually inclined, but who has undergone a complete
change of character, has the following dream, which consists of three
parts: (1) _He is “insulted” by his brother._ (2) _Two adults are
caressing each other with homosexual intentions._ (3) _His brother has
sold the enterprise whose management the young man reserved for his own
future._ He awakens from the last-mentioned dream with the most
unpleasant feelings, and yet it is a masochistic wish-dream, which might
be translated: It would serve me quite right if my brother were to make
that sale against my interest, as a punishment for all the torments
which he has suffered at my hands.
I hope that the above discussion and examples will suffice—until further
objection can be raised—to make it seem credible that even dreams with a
painful content are to be analysed as the fulfilments of wishes. Nor
will it seem a matter of chance that in the course of interpretation one
always happens upon subjects of which one does not like to speak or
think. The disagreeable sensation which such dreams arouse is simply
identical with the antipathy which endeavours—usually with success—to
restrain us from the treatment or discussion of such subjects, and which
must be overcome by all of us, if, in spite of its unpleasantness, we
find it necessary to take the matter in hand. But this disagreeable
sensation, which occurs also in dreams, does not preclude the existence
of a wish; everyone has wishes which he would not like to tell to
others, which he does not want to admit even to himself. We are, on
other grounds, justified in connecting the disagreeable character of all
these dreams with the fact of dream disfigurement, and in concluding
that these dreams are distorted, and that the wish-fulfilment in them is
disguised until recognition is impossible for no other reason than that
a repugnance, a will to suppress, exists in relation to the
subject-matter of the dream or in relation to the wish which the dream
creates. Dream disfigurement, then, turns out in reality to be an act of
the censor. We shall take into consideration everything which the
analysis of disagreeable dreams has brought to light if we reword our
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