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

FIFTEENTH LECTURE
THE DREAM
Doubtful Points and Criticism
LET us not leave the subject of dreams before we have touched upon the
most common doubts and uncertainties which have arisen in connection with the
new ideas and conceptions we have discussed up to this point. The more attentive
members of the audience probably have already accumulated some material
bearing upon this.
1. You may have received the impression that the results of our work of
interpretation of the dream have left so much that is uncertain, despite our
close adherence to technique, that a true translation of the manifest dream
into the latent dream thoughts is thereby rendered impossible. In support of
this you will point out that in the first place, one never knows whether a
specific element of the dream is to be taken literally or symbolically, since
those elements which are used symbolically do not, because of that fact,
cease to be themselves. But if one has no objective standard by which to
decide this, the interpretation is, as to this point, left to the discretion of the
dream interpreter. Moreover, because of the way in which the dream work
combines opposites, it is always uncertain whether a specific dream element
is to be taken in the positive or the negative sense, whether it is to be
understood as itself or as its opposite. Hence this is another opportunity for
the exercise of the interpreter's discretion. In the third place, in consequence
of the frequency with which every sort of inversion is practised in the dream,
the dream interpreter is at liberty to assume such an inversion at any point of
the dream he pleases. And finally you will say, you have heard that one is
seldom sure that the interpretation which is found is the only possible one.
There is danger of overlooking a thoroughly admissible second interpretation
of the same dream. Under these circumstances, you will conclude there is a
scope left for the discretion of the interpreter, the breadth of which seems
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