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

ostensibly is the goal of dream-work?" This question is important. It was, in
fact, the question of our lay-critics. As you know, humanity has an instinctive
antagonism toward intellectual novelties. The expression of such a novelty
should immediately be reduced to its narrowest limits, if possible, comprised
in a commonplace phrase. Wish-fulfillment has become that phrase for the
new dream-science. The layman asks: "Where is the wish-fulfillment?"
Immediately, upon having heard that the dream is supposed to be a wishfulfillment,
and indeed, by the very asking of the question, he answers it with
a denial. He is at once reminded of countless dream-experiences of his own,
where his aversion to the dream was enormous, so that the proposition of
psychoanalytic dream-science seems very improbable to him. It is a simple
matter to answer the layman that wish-fulfillment cannot be apparent in
distorted dreams, but must be sought out, so that it is not recognized until
the dream is interpreted. We know, too, that the wishes in these distorted
dreams are prohibited wishes, are wishes rejected by the censor and that
their existence lit the very cause of the dream distortion and the reason for
the intrusion of the dream censor. But it is hard to convince the lay-critic that
one may not seek the wish-fulfillment in the dream before the dream has
been interpreted. This is continually forgotten. His sceptical attitude toward
the theory of wish-fulfillment is really nothing more than a consequence of
dream-censorship, a substitute and a result of the denial of this censored
dream-wish.
To be sure, even we shall find it necessary to explain to ourselves why there
are so many dreams of painful content, and especially dreams of fear. We see
here, for the first time, the problem of the affects in the dream, a problem
worthy of separate investigation, but which unfortunately cannot be
considered here. If the dream is a wish-fulfillment, painful experiences ought
to be impossible in the dream; in that the lay-critics apparently are right. But
three complications, not thought of by them, must be taken into
consideration.
First: It may be that the dream work has not been successful in creating a
wish-fulfillment, so that a part of the painful effect of the dream-thought is
left over for the manifest dream. Analysis should then show that these
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