Of many dreams it can be ascertained by a careful interpretation that
they are even to be taken bisexually, inasmuch as they result in an
irrefutable secondary interpretation in which they realise homosexual
feelings—that is, feelings that are common to the normal sexual activity
of the dreaming person. But that all dreams are to be interpreted
bisexually, as maintained by W. Stekel,[CN] and Alf. Adler,[CO] seems to
me to be a generalisation as indemonstrable as it is improbable, which I
should not like to support. Above all I should not know how to dispose
of the apparent fact that there are many dreams satisfying other than—in
the widest sense—erotic needs, as dreams of hunger, thirst, convenience,
&c. Likewise the similar assertions “that behind every dream one finds
the death sentence” (Stekel), and that every dream shows “a continuation
from the feminine to the masculine line” (Adler), seem to me to proceed
far beyond what is admissible in the interpretation of dreams.
We have already asserted elsewhere that dreams which are conspicuously
innocent invariably embody coarse erotic wishes, and we might confirm
this by means of numerous fresh examples. But many dreams which appear
indifferent, and which would never be suspected of any particular
significance, can be traced back, after analysis, to unmistakably sexual
wish-feelings, which are often of an unexpected nature. For example, who
would suspect a sexual wish in the following dream until the
interpretation had been worked out? The dreamer relates: _Between two
stately palaces stands a little house, receding somewhat, whose doors
are closed. My wife leads me a little way along the street up to the
little house, and pushes in the door, and then I slip quickly and easily
into the interior of a courtyard that slants obliquely upwards._
Anyone who has had experience in the translating of dreams will, of
course, immediately perceive that penetrating into narrow spaces, and
opening locked doors, belong to the commonest sexual symbolism, and will
easily find in this dream a representation of attempted coition from
behind (between the two stately buttocks of the female body). The narrow
slanting passage is of course the vagina; the assistance attributed to
the wife of the dreamer requires the interpretation that in reality it
is only consideration for the wife which is responsible for the
detention from such an attempt. Moreover, inquiry shows that on the
previous day a young girl had entered the household of the dreamer who
had pleased him, and who had given him the impression that she would not
be altogether opposed to an approach of this sort. The little house
between the two palaces is taken from a reminiscence of the Hradschin in
Prague, and thus points again to the girl who is a native of that city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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