_With a propyl preparation ... propyls ... propionic acid._ How did this
ever occur to me? On the same evening on which I had written part of the
history of the disease before having the dream, my wife opened a bottle
of cordial labelled “Ananas,”[W] (which was a present from our friend
Otto. For he had a habit of making presents on every possible occasion;
I hope he will some day be cured of this by a wife).[X] Such a smell of
fusel oil arose from this cordial that I refused to taste it. My wife
observed: “We will give this bottle to the servants,” and I, still more
prudent, forbade it, with the philanthropic remark: “They mustn’t be
poisoned either.” The smell of fusel oil (amyl ...) has now apparently
awakened in my memory the whole series, propyl, methyl, &c., which has
furnished the propyl preparation of the dream. In this, it is true, I
have employed a substitution; I have dreamt of propyl, after smelling
amyl, but substitutions of this kind are perhaps permissible, especially
in organic chemistry.
_Trimethylamin._ I see the chemical formula of this substance in the
dream, a fact which probably gives evidence of a great effort on the
part of my memory, and, moreover, the formula is printed in heavy type,
as if to lay special stress upon something of particular importance, as
distinguished from the context. To what does this trimethylamin lead,
which has been so forcibly called to my attention? It leads to a
conversation with another friend who for years has known all my
germinating activities, as I have his. At that time he had just informed
me of some of his ideas about sexual chemistry, and had mentioned, among
others, that he thought he recognised in trimethylamin one of the
products of sexual metabolism. This substance thus leads me to
sexuality, to that factor which I credit with the greatest significance
for the origin of the nervous affections which I attempt to cure. My
patient Irma is a young widow; if I am anxious to excuse the failure of
her cure, I suppose I shall best do so by referring to this condition,
which her admirers would be glad to change. How remarkably, too, such a
dream is fashioned! The other woman, whom I take as my patient in the
dream instead of Irma, is also a young widow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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