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The Method Of Dream Interpretation - Freud
The Method Of Dream Interpretation-The Interpretation of Dreams-Freud
The Analysis of a Specimen Dream
The epigraph on the title-page of this volume* indicates the tradition to which I prefer to all myself in my conception of the dream. I am proposing to show that dreams are capable of interpretation; and any contributions to the solution of the problem which have already been discussed will emerge only as possible by-products in the accomplishment of my special task.
On the hypothesis that dreams are susceptible of interpretation, I at once find myself in disagreement with the prevailing docrine of dreams - in fact, with all the theories of dreams, excepting only that of Scherner, for 'to interpret a dream,' is to specify its 'meaning', to replace it by something which takes its position in the concatenation of our psychic activities as a link of definite importance and value. But, as we have seen, the scientific theories of the dream leave no room for a problem of dream-interpretation; since, in the first place, according to these theories, dreaming is not a psychic activity at all, but a somatic process which makes itself known to the psychic apparatus by means of symbols. Lay opinion has always been opposed to these theories.
It asserts its privilege of proceeding illogically, and although it admits that dreams are incomprehensible and absurd, it cannot summon up the courage to deny that dreams have any significance. led by a dim intuition, it seems rather to assume that significance. Led by a dim intuition, it seems rather to assume that dreams have a meaning, albeit a hidden one; that they are intended as a substitute for some other thought-process, and that we have only to disclose this substitute correctly in order to discover the hidden meaning of the dream.
The unscientific world therefore, has always endeavoured to 'interpret' dreams, and by applying one or the other of two essentially different methods. The first of these methods envisages the dream-content as a whole, and seeks to replace it by another content, which is intelligible and in certain respects analogous. This is a symbolic dream-interpretation: and of course it goes to pieces at the very outset in the case of those dreams which are not only unintelligible but confused.
The construction which the biblical Joseph placed upon the dream of Pharaoh furnishes an example of of this method. The seven fat kine, after which came seven lean ones that devoured the former, were a symbolic substitute for seven years of famine in the land of Egypt, which according to the prediction were to consume all the surplus that seven fruitful years had produced. Most of the artifical dreams contrived by the poets are intended for some such symbolic interpretation, for they reproduce the thought conceived by the poet in a guise not unlike the disguise which we are wont to find in dreams.The idea that the dream concerns itself chiefly with the future, whose form it surmises in advance - a relic of the prophetic significane with which dreams were once invested. -now becomes the motive for translating into the future the meaning of the dreamwhich has been found by means of symbolic interpretation.
A demonstration of the manner in which one arrived at such a symbolis interpretation cannot, of course, be given. Success remains a matter of ingenious conjecture, of direct intuition, and for this reason dream-interpretation has naturally been elevated into an art which seems to depend upon extraordinary gifts.
NB:1) In a novel Gradiva, by the poet W. jensen, I chanced to discover several fictitious dreams, which were perfectly correct in their construction, and could be interpreted as though they had not been inventd but had been dreams by actual persons. The poet declared, upon my enquiry, that he was unacquainted with my theory of dreams. I have made use of this agreementbetween my investigations and the creations of the poet as proof of the correctness of my method of dream-analysis (der Whan und die Traume in W. Jensen's Gradive, Vol1 of the Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde, 1906, edited by myself. Ges. Schriften, vol. ix).
2) Aristotle expressed himself in this connection by saying that the best interpreter of dreams is he who can best grasp similarities. For dream-pictures like pictures in water, are disfigured by the motion of the water), so that he hits the target best who is able to recognise the true picture in the distorted one. (Buchsenschutz, p. 65)
3) . Artemidoros of Daldis, born probably in the beginning of the second century of our calender, has furnished us with the most complete and careful elaboration of dream-interpretation as it existed in the Graeco-Roman world. As Gompertz has emphasised, he ascribed great importance to the consideration that dreams ought to be interpreted on the basis of observation and experience, and he drew a definite line between his own art and other methods, which he considered fraudulent. The principle of his art of interpretation is, according to Gompertz identical with that of magic: i.e. the principle of association.
The thing dreamed meant what is recalled to the memory - to the memory , of course, of the dream interpreter! this fact - that the dream may remind the interpreter of various things, and every interpreter of different things - leads, of course, to uncontrollable arbitrariness and uncertainty. The techniques which I am about to describe differs from that of the ancients in on e essential point, namely, in that it imposes upon the dreamer himself the work of interpretation. instead of taking into account whatever may occur to the dream- interpreter, it considers only what occurs to the dreamer in connection with the dream-element concerned.
According to the recent records of the missionary Tfinkdjit (Anthropos, 1913) it would seem that the modern dream interpreters of the Orient likewise attribute much importance to the co-operation of the dreamer. Of the dream interpreters among the Mesopotamian Arabs this writer relates as follows: ' Pous interpreters exactement un song les oniromanciens les plus habiles s'informent de ceux qui les consultent de toutes les circonstances qu'ils regardent necessaires pour la bonne explication ....En un mot, nos oniromanciens ne laissent aucune circonstance leur echapper et ne donnent l'interpretation desire avant d'avoir parfaitement saisi et recu toutes les interrogations desirables.'
Among these questions one always finds demands for precise information in respect to near relatives (parents, wife, children) as well as the following formulas: habistine in hac nocte copulam conjugalem ante vel post sommmmmmium? - L'idee dominante dans l'interpretation des songes a explique le reve par son oppose.'
Reference : Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams
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