But the dream was not satisfied with “suggesting away” the furuncle by
means of tenaciously adhering to an idea incompatible with that of the
malady, in doing which it behaved like the hallucinatory insanity of the
mother who has lost her child, or like the merchant who has been
deprived of his fortune by losses.[BP] In addition the details of the
denied sensation and of the image which is used to displace it are
employed by the dream as a means to connect the material ordinarily
actually present in the mind with the dream situation, and to give this
material representation. I am riding on a _grey_ horse—the colour of the
horse corresponds exactly to the _pepper-and-salt_ costume in which I
last met my colleague P. in the country. I have been warned that highly
seasoned food is the cause of furunculosis, but in any case it is
preferable as an etiological explanation to sugar which ordinarily
suggests furunculosis. My friend P. has been pleased to “ride the high
horse” with regard to me, ever since he superseded me in the treatment
of a female patient, with whom I had performed great feats (in the dream
I first sit on the horse side-saddle fashion, like a circus rider), but
who really led me wherever she wished, like the horse in the anecdote
about the Sunday equestrian. Thus the horse came to be a symbolic
representation of a lady patient (in the dream it is most intelligent).
“I feel quite at home up here,” refers to the position which I occupied
in the patient’s household until I was replaced by my colleague P. “I
thought you were securely seated in the saddle,” one of my few
well-wishers among the great physicians of this city recently said to me
with reference to the same household. And it was a feat to practise
psychotherapy for ten hours a day with such pains, but I know that I
cannot continue my particularly difficult work for any length of time
without complete physical health, and the dream is full of gloomy
allusions to the situation which must in that case result (the card such
as neurasthenics have and present to doctors): _No work and no food_.
With further interpretation I see that the dream activity has succeeded
in finding the way from the wish-situation of riding to very early
infantile scenes of quarrelling, which must have taken place between me
and my nephew, who is now living in England, and who, moreover, is a
year older than I. Besides it has taken up elements from my journeys to
Italy; the street in the dream is composed of impressions of Verona and
Siena. Still more exhaustive interpretation leads to sexual
dream-thoughts, and I recall what significance dream allusions to that
beautiful country had in the case of a female patient who had never been
in Italy (Itlay—German _gen Italien_—_Genitalien_—genitals). At the same
time there are references to the house in which I was physician before
my friend P., and to the place where the furuncle is located.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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