19.11.2017 Views

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

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

"With the feeling that she is merely doing her duty, she goes up an endless<br />

staircase."<br />

This dream she repeats twice in the course of a few weeks, with—as the lady<br />

notices—quite insignificant and very senseless changes.<br />

This dream corresponds in its structure <strong>to</strong> a day dream. It has few gaps, and<br />

many of its individual points might have been elucidated as <strong>to</strong> content<br />

through inquiry, which, as you know, was omitted. The conspicuous and<br />

interesting point for us, however, is that the dream shows several gaps, gaps<br />

not of recollection, but of original content. In three places the content is<br />

apparently obliterated, the speeches in which these gaps occur are<br />

interrupted by murmurs. Since we have performed no analysis, we have,<br />

strictly speaking, also no right <strong>to</strong> make any assertion about the meaning of<br />

the dream. Yet there are intimations given from which something may be<br />

concluded. For example, the phrase "services of love," and above all the bits<br />

of speech which immediately precede the murmurs, demand a completion<br />

which can have but one meaning. If we interpolate these, then the phantasy<br />

yields as its content the idea that the dreamer is ready, as an act of patriotic<br />

duty, <strong>to</strong> offer her person for the satisfaction of the erotic desires of the army,<br />

officers as well as troops. That certainly is exceedingly shocking, it is an<br />

impudent libidinous phantasy, but—it does not occur in the dream at all. Just<br />

at the point where consistency would demand this confession, there is a<br />

vague murmur in the manifest dream, something is lost or suppressed.<br />

I hope you will recognize the inevitability of the conclusion that it is the<br />

shocking character of these places in the dream that was the motive for their<br />

suppression. Yet where do you find a parallel for this state of affairs? In these<br />

times you need not seek far. Take up any political paper and you will find that<br />

the text is obliterated here and there, and that in its place shimmers the white<br />

of the paper. You know that that is the work of the newspaper censor. In<br />

these blank spaces something was printed which was not <strong>to</strong> the liking of the<br />

censorship authorities, and for that reason it was crossed out. You think that<br />

it is a pity, that it probably was the most interesting part, it was "the best<br />

part."<br />

119

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!