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

epresentation of the higher psychic functions (V. Silberer). There are such
dreams, but you will try in vain to extend this conception to even a majority
of the dreams. But after everything you have heard, the statement will seem
very incomprehensible that all dreams can be interpreted bisexually, that is,
as the concurrence of two tendencies which may be designated as male and
female (A. Adler). To be sure, there are a few such dreams, and you may
learn later that these are built up in the manner of certain hysterical
symptoms. I mention all these newly discovered general characteristics of the
dream in order to warn you against them or at least in order not to leave you
in doubt as to how I judge them.
4. At one time the objective value of dream research was called into question
by the observation that patients undergoing analysis accommodate the
content of their dreams to the favorite theories of their physicians, so that
some dream predominantly of sexual impulses, others of the desire for power
and still others even of rebirth (W. Stekel). The weight of this observation is
diminished by the consideration that people dreamed before there was such a
thing as a psychoanalytic treatment to influence their dreams, and that those
who are now undergoing treatment were also in the habit of dreaming before
the treatment was commenced. The meaning of this novel discovery can soon
be recognized as a matter of course and as of no consequence for the theory
of the dream. Those day-remnants which give rise to the dream are the
overflow from the strong interest of the waking life. If the remarks of the
physician and the stimuli which he gives have become significant to the
patient under analysis, then they become a part of the day's remnants, can
serve as psychic stimuli for the formation of a dream along with other,
emotionally-charged, unsolved interests of the day, and operate much as do
the somatic stimuli which act upon the sleeper during his sleep. Just like these
other incitors of the dream, the sequence of ideas which the physician sets in
motion may appear in the manifest content, or may be traced in the latent
content of the dream. Indeed, we know that one can produce dreams
experimentally, or to speak more accurately, one can insert into the dream a
part of the dream material. Thus the analyst in influencing his patients,
merely plays the role of an experimenter in the manner of Mourly Vold, who
places the limbs of his subjects in certain positions.
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