The first part of the content of this dream is an allusion to the
treatment and a transference on me. The second contains an allusion to a
childhood scene; the two portions are connected by the mention of the
bed. The orthopædic institute refers to one of my talks in which I
compared the treatment as to its duration and nature with an orthopædic
treatment. At the beginning of the treatment I had to tell her that _for
the present_ I had little time for her, but that later on I would devote
a whole hour to her daily. This aroused in her the old sensitiveness,
which is the chief characteristic of children who are to be hysterical.
Their desire for love is insatiable. My patient was the youngest of six
brothers and sisters (hence, “_with five others_”), and as such the
favourite of her father, but in spite of that she seems to have found
that her beloved father devoted too little time and attention to her.
The detail of her waiting for me to say “It is not true,” has the
following explanation: A tailor’s apprentice had brought her a dress,
and she had given him the money for it. Then she asked her husband
whether she would have to pay the money again if the boy were to lose
it. To tease her, her husband answered “Yes” (the teasing in the dream),
and she asked again and again, and _waited for him to say_ “_It is not
true._” The thought of the latent dream-content may now be construed as
follows: Will she have to pay me the double amount if I devote twice the
time to her? a thought which is stingy or filthy. (The uncleanliness of
childhood is often replaced in the dream by greediness for money; the
word filthy here supplies the bridge.) If all that about waiting until I
should say, &c., serves as a dream circumlocution for the word “filthy,”
the standing-in-a-corner and not lying down-on-the-bed are in keeping;
for these two features are component parts of a scene of childhood, in
which she had soiled her bed, and for punishment was put into a corner,
with the warning that papa would not love her any more, and her brothers
and sisters laughed at her, &c. The little squares refer to her young
niece, who has shown her the arithmetical trick of writing figures in
nine squares, I believe it is, in such a way that upon being added
together in any direction they make fifteen.
II. Here is the dream of a man: _He sees two boys tussling with each
other, and they are cooper’s boys, as he concludes from the implements
which are lying about; one of the boys has thrown the other down, the
prostrate one wears ear-rings with blue stones. He hurries after the
wrongdoer with lifted cane, in order to chastise him. The latter takes
refuge with a woman who is standing against a wooden fence, as though it
were his mother. She is the wife of a day labourer, and she turns her
back to the man who is dreaming. At last she faces about and stares at
him with a horrible look, so that he runs away in fright; in her eyes
the red flesh of the lower lid seems to stand out._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account