I am glad to be able to say that I have found little to change. Here and
there I have inserted new material, added new views from my wider
experience, and attempted to revise certain points; but everything
essential concerning the dream and its interpretation, as well as the
psychological propositions derived from it, has remained unchanged: at
least, subjectively, it has stood the test of time. Those who are
acquainted with my other works on the Etiology and Mechanism of the
psychoneuroses, know that I have never offered anything unfinished as
finished, and that I have always striven to change my assertions in
accordance with my advancing views; but in the realm of the dream life I
have been able to stand by my first declarations. During the long years
of my work on the problems of the neuroses, I have been repeatedly
confronted with doubts, and have often made mistakes; but it was always
in the “interpretation of dreams” that I found my bearings. My numerous
scientific opponents, therefore, show an especially sure instinct when
they refuse to follow me into this territory of dream investigation.
Likewise, the material used in this book to illustrate the rules of
dream interpretation, drawn chiefly from dreams of my own which have
been depreciated and outstripped by events, have in the revision shown a
persistence which resisted substantial changes. For me, indeed, the book
has still another subjective meaning which I could comprehend only after
it had been completed. It proved to be for me a part of my
self-analysis, a reaction to the death of my father—that is, to the most
significant event, the deepest loss, in the life of a man. After I
recognised this I felt powerless to efface the traces of this influence.
For the reader, however, it makes no difference from what material he
learns to value and interpret dreams.
BERCHTESGADEN, Summer of 1908.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
Whereas a period of nine years elapsed between the first and second
editions of this book, the need for a third edition has appeared after
little more than a year. I have reason to be pleased with this change;
but, just as I have not considered the earlier neglect of my work on the
part of the reader as a proof of its unworthiness, I am unable to find
in the interest manifested at present a proof of its excellence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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