The attitude of the dream towards the category of antithesis and
contradiction is most striking. This category is unceremoniously
neglected; the word “No” does not seem to exist for the dream.
Antitheses are with peculiar preference reduced to unity or represented
as one. The dream also takes the liberty of representing any element
whatever by its desired opposite, so that it is at first impossible to
tell about any element capable of having an opposite, whether it is to
be taken negatively or positively, in the dream thoughts.[DU] In one of
the last-mentioned dreams, whose introductory portion we have already
interpreted (“because my parentage is such”), the dreamer descends over
a balustrade and holds a blossoming twig in her hands. Since this
picture suggests to her the angel in paintings of the Annunciation (her
own name is Mary) carrying a lily stem in his hand, and the white-robed
girls marching in the procession on Corpus Christi Day when the streets
are decorated with green bows, the blossoming twig in the dream is very
certainly an allusion to sexual innocence. But the twig is thickly
studded with red blossoms, each one of which resembles a camelia. At the
end of her walk, so the dream continues, the blossoms have already
fallen considerably apart; then unmistakable allusions to menstruation
follow. But this very twig which is carried like a lily and as though by
an innocent girl, is also an allusion to Camille, who, as is known,
always wore a white camelia, but a red one at the time of her
menstruation. The same blossoming twig (“the flower of maidenhood” in
the songs about the miller’s daughter by Goethe) represents at once
sexual innocence and its opposite. The same dream, also, which expresses
the dreamer’s joy at having succeeded in passing through life unsullied,
hints in several places (as at the falling-off of the blossom), at the
opposite train of thought—namely, that she had been guilty of various
sins against sexual purity (that is in her childhood). In the analysis
of the dream we may clearly distinguish the two trains of thought, of
which the comforting one seems to be superficial, the reproachful one
more profound. The two are diametrically opposed to each other, and
their like but contrasting elements have been represented by the
identical dream elements.
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