a-general-introduction-to-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud

the compromise between the two. The dream fits into the same scheme. The
tendency interfered with, in this case, can be no other than that of sleep. For
the interfering tendency we substitute the psychic stimulus, the wish which
strives for its fulfillment, let us say, for thus far we are not familiar with any
other sleep-disturbing psychic stimulus. In this instance also the dream is the
result of compromise. We sleep, and yet we experience the removal of a
wish; we gratify the wish, but at the same time continue to sleep. Both are
partly carried out and partly given up.
8. You will remember that we once hoped to gain access to the understanding
of the dream problem by the fact that certain very transparent phantasy
formations are called day dreams. Now these day dreams are actual wish
fulfillments, fulfillments of ambitious or erotic wishes with which we are
familiar; but they are conscious, and though vividly imagined, they are never
hallucinatory experiences. In this instance, therefore, the less firmly
established of the two main characteristics of the dream holds, while the
other proves itself entirely dependent upon the condition of sleep and
impossible to the waking state. In colloquial usage, therefore, there is a
presentment of the fact that the fulfillment of a wish is a main characteristic
of the dream. Furthermore, if the experience in the dream is a transformed
representation only made possible by the condition of sleep—in other words,
a sort of nocturnal day dream—then we can readily understand that the
occurrence of phantasy formations can release the nocturnal stimulus and
bring satisfaction. For day dreaming is an activity closely bound up in
gratification and is, indeed, pursued only for this reason.
Not only this but other colloquial usages also express the same feeling. Wellknown
proverbs say, "The pig dreams of acorns, the goose of maize," or ask,
"Of what does the hen dream? Of millet." So the proverb descends even lower
than we do, from the child to the animal, and maintains that the content of a
dream is the satisfaction of a need. Many turns of speech seem to point to the
same thing—"dreamlike beauty," "I should never have dreamed of that," "in
my wildest dreams I hadn't imagined that." This is open partisanship on the
part of colloquial usage. For there are also dreams of fear and dreams of
embarrassing or indifferent content, but they have not been drawn into
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