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

unconscious wish, for the fulfillment of which the dream content is rebuilt.
The dream may be any conceivable thing, if you take into account only the
thoughts represented by it, warning, resolution, preparation, etc.; it is also
always the fulfillment of an unknown wish, and it is this only if you look upon
it as the result of the dream-work. A dream is never itself a resolution, a
warning, and no more—but always a resolution, etc., translated into an
archaic form of expression with the help of the unconscious wish, and
changed about for the purpose of fulfilling this wish. The one characteristic,
wish-fulfillment, is constant; the other may vary; it may itself be a wish at
times, so that the dream, with the aid of an unconscious wish, presents as
fulfilled a latent wish out of waking hours.
I understand all this very well, but I do not know whether or not I shall be
successful in making you understand it as well. I have difficulties, too, in
proving it to you. This cannot be done without, on the one hand, careful
analysis of many dreams, and on the other hand this most difficult and most
important point of our conception of the dream cannot be set forth
convincingly without reference to things to follow. Can you, in fact, believe
that taking into consideration the intimate relationship of all things, one is
able to penetrate deeply into the nature of one thing without having carefully
considered other things of a very similar nature? Since we know nothing as
yet about the closest relatives of the dream, neurotic symptoms, we must
once again content ourselves with what has already been accomplished. I
want to explain one more example to you, and propose a new viewpoint.
Let us again take up that dream to which we have several times recurred, the
dream of the three theatre tickets for 1 Fl. 50 Kr. I can assure you that I took
this example quite unpremeditatedly at first. You are acquainted with the
latent dream thoughts: annoyance, upon hearing that her friend had just now
become engaged, at the thought that she herself had hurried so to be
married; contempt for her husband; the idea that she might have had a
better one had she waited. We also know the wish, which made a dream out
of these thoughts—it is "curiosity to see," being permitted to go to the
theatre, very likely a derivation from the old curiosity finally to know just what
happens when one is married. This curiosity, as is well known, regularly
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