The Interpretation of Dreams. Sigmund Freud
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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.
The progress in scientific knowledge has shown its influence on the Interpretation of Dreams. When I wrote it in 1899 the "Sexual Theories" was not yet in existence, and the analysis of complicated forms of psychoneuroses was still in its infancy. The interpretation of dreams was destined to aid in the psychological analysis of the neuroses, but since then the deeper understanding of the neuroses has reacted on our conception of the dream. The study of dream interpretation itself has continued to develop in a direction upon which not enough stress was laid in the first edition of this book. From my own experience, as well as from the works of W. Stekel and others, I have since learned to attach a greater value to the extent and the significance of symbolism in dreams (or rather in the unconscious thinking). Thus much has accumulated in the course of this year which requires consideration. I have endeavoured to do justice to this new material by numerous insertions in the text and by the addition of footnotes. If these supplements occasionally threaten to warp the original discussion, or if, even with their aid, we have been unsuccessful in raising the original text to the niveau of our present views, I must beg indulgence for the gaps in the book, as they are only consequences and indications of the present rapid development of our knowledge. I also venture to foretell in what other directions later editions of the Interpretation of Dreams—in case any should be demanded—will differ from the present one. They will have, on the one hand, to include selections from the rich material of poetry, myth, usage of language, and folklore, and, on the other hand, to treat more profoundly the relations of the dream to the neuroses and to mental diseases.
Mr. Otto Rank has rendered me valuable service in the selection of the addenda and in reading the proof sheets. I am gratefully indebted to him and to many others for their contributions and corrections.
Vienna, Spring of 1911.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
Since the appearance of the author's Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses, and Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory,1 much has been said and written about Freud's works. Some of our readers have made an honest endeavour to test and utilise the author's theories, but they have been handicapped by their inability to read fluently very difficult German, for only two of Freud's works have hitherto been accessible to English readers. For them this work will be of invaluable assistance. To be sure, numerous articles on the Freudian psychology have of late made their appearance in our literature;2 but these scattered papers, read by those unacquainted with the original work, often serve to confuse rather than enlighten. For Freud cannot be mastered from the reading of a few pamphlets, or even one or two of his original works. Let me repeat what I have so often said: No one is really qualified to use or to judge Freud's psychoanalytic method who has not thoroughly mastered his theory of the neuroses—The Interpretation of Dreams, Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious, and who has not had considerable experience in analysing the dreams and psychopathological actions of himself and others. That there is required also a thorough training in normal and abnormal psychology goes without saying.
The Interpretation of Dreams is the author's greatest and most important work; it is here that he develops his psychoanalytic technique, a thorough knowledge of which is absolutely indispensable for every worker in this field. The difficult task of making a translation of this work has, therefore, been undertaken primarily for the purpose of assisting those who are actively engaged in treating patients by Freud's psychoanalytic method. Considered apart from its practical aim, the book presents much that is of interest to the psychologist and the general reader. For, notwithstanding the fact that dreams have of late years been the subject of investigation at the hands of many competent observers, only few have contributed anything tangible towards their solution; it was Freud who divested the dream of its mystery, and solved its riddles. He not only showed us that the dream is full of meaning, but amply demonstrated that it is intimately connected with normal and abnormal mental life. It is in the treatment of the abnormal mental states that we must recognise the most important value of dream interpretation. The dream does not only reveal to us the cryptic mechanisms of hallucinations, delusions, phobias, obsessions, and other psychopathological conditions, but it is also the most potent instrument in the removal of these.3
I take this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness to Professor F. C. Prescott for reading the manuscript and for helping me overcome the almost insurmountable difficulties in the translation.
A. A. BRILL.
New York City.
1. Translated by A. A. Brill (Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Company).
2. Cf. the works of Ernest Jones, James J. Putnam, the present writer, and others.
3. For examples demonstrating these facts, cf. my work, Psychoanalysis; its Theories and Practical Application, W. B. Saunders' Publishing Company, Philadelphia & London.
I
THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ON THE PROBLEMS OF THE DREAM1
In the following pages I shall prove that there exists a psychological technique by which dreams may be interpreted, and that upon the application of this method every dream will show itself to be a senseful psychological structure which may be introduced into an assignable place in the psychic activity of the waking state. I shall furthermore endeavour to explain the processes which give rise to the strangeness and obscurity of the dream, and to discover through them the nature of the psychic forces which operate, whether in combination or in opposition, to produce the dream. This accomplished, my investigation will terminate, as it will have reached the point where the problem of the dream meets with broader problems, the solution of which must be attempted through other material.
I must presuppose that the reader is acquainted with the work done by earlier authors as well as with the present status of the dream problem in science, since in the course of this treatise I shall not often have occasion to return to them. For, notwithstanding the effort of several thousand years, little progress has been made in the scientific understanding of dreams. This has been so universally acknowledged by the authors that it seems unnecessary to quote individual opinions. One will find in the writings indexed at the end of this book many stimulating observations and plenty of interesting material for our subject, but little or nothing that concerns the true nature of the dream or that solves definitively any of its enigmas. Still less of course has been transmitted to the knowledge of the educated laity.
The first book in which the