The wish which the dream fulfils is obviously that I may be acknowledged
to be an honest man, and may go; all kinds of subject-matter containing
a contradiction of this idea must therefore be present in the
dream-thoughts. The fact that I may go is the sign of my absolution; if,
then, the dream furnishes at its close an event which prevents me from
going, we may readily conclude that the suppressed subject-matter of the
contradiction asserts itself in this feature. The circumstance that I
cannot find my hat therefore means: “You are not an honest man after
all.” Failure to accomplish in the dream is the expression of a
contradiction, a “No”; and therefore the earlier assertion, to the
effect that the dream is not capable of expressing a negation, must be
revised accordingly.[DY]
In other dreams which involve failure to accomplish a thing not only as
a situation but also as a sensation, the same contradiction is more
emphatically expressed in the form of a volition, to which a counter
volition opposes itself. Thus the sensation of impeded motion represents
a _conflict of will_. We shall hear later that this very motor paralysis
belongs to the fundamental conditions of the psychic process in
dreaming. Now the impulse which is transferred to motor channels is
nothing else than the will, and the fact that we are sure to find this
impulse impeded in the dream makes the whole process extraordinarily
well suited to represent volition and the “No” which opposes itself
thereto. From my explanation of anxiety, it is easy to understand why
the sensation of thwarted will is so closely allied to anxiety, and why
it is so often connected with it in the dream. Anxiety is a libidinous
impulse which emanates from the unconscious, and is inhibited by the
foreconscious. Therefore, when a sensation of inhibition in the dream is
accompanied by anxiety, there must also be present a volition which has
at one time been capable of arousing a _libido_; there must be a sexual
impulse.
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