We have learned (p. 16) that the dream very rarely reproduces
experiences in such a manner that they constitute the sole manifest
dream content, unabridged and unchanged. Still some authentic examples
showing this process have been reported, and I can add some new ones
which again refer to infantile scenes. In the case of one of my
patients, a dream once gave a barely disfigured reproduction of a sexual
occurrence, which was immediately recognised as an accurate
recollection. The memory of it indeed had never been lost in waking
life, but it had been greatly obscured, and its revivification was a
result of the preceding work of analysis. The dreamer had at the age of
twelve visited a bed-ridden schoolmate, who had exposed himself by a
movement in bed, probably only by chance. At the sight of the genitals,
he was seized by a kind of compulsion, exposed himself and took hold of
the member belonging to the other boy, who, however, looked at him with
surprise and indignation, whereupon he became embarrassed and let go. A
dream repeated this scene twenty-three years later, with all the details
of the emotions occurring in it, changing it, however, in this respect,
that the dreamer took the passive part instead of the active one, while
the person of the schoolmate was replaced by one belonging to the
present.
As a rule, of course, a childhood scene is represented in the manifest
dream content only by an allusion, and must be extricated from the dream
by means of interpretation. The citation of examples of this kind cannot
have a very convincing effect, because every guarantee that they are
experiences of childhood is lacking; if they belong to an earlier time
of life, they are no longer recognised by our memory. Justification for
the conclusion that such childish experiences generally exist in dreams
is based upon a great number of factors which become apparent in
psychoanalytical work, and which seem reliable enough when regarded as a
whole. But when, for the purposes of dream interpretation, such
references of dreams to childish experiences are torn from their
context, they will perhaps not make much impression, especially since I
never give all the material upon which the interpretation depends.
However, I shall not let this prevent me from giving some examples.
I. The following dream is from another female patient: _She is in a
large room, in which there are all kinds of machines, perhaps, as she
imagines, an orthopædic institute. She hears that I have no time, and
that she must take the treatment along with five others. But she
resists, and is unwilling to lie down on the bed—or whatever it is—which
is intended for her. She stands in a corner and waits for me to say “It
is not true.” The others, meanwhile, laugh at her, saying it is all
foolishness on her part. At the same time it is as if she were called
upon to make many small squares._
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