The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud (1900)

expressing in the picture.
Here, perhaps an objection will be raised, challenging the assertion that our dreams dispense with the representation of logical relations. There are
dreams in which the most complicated intellectual operations take place; arguments for and against are adduced, jokes and comparisons are made,
just as in our waking thoughts. But here again appearances are deceptive; if the interpretation of such dreams is continued it will be found that all
these things are dream-material, not the representation of intellectual activity in the dream. The content of the dream-thoughts is reproduced by
the apparent thinking in our dreams, but not the relations of the dream-thoughts to one another, in the determination of which relations thinking
consists. I shall give some examples of this. But the fact which is most easily established is that all speeches which occur in dreams, and which
are expressly designated as such, are unchanged or only slightly modified replicas of speeches which occur likewise among the memories in the
dream-material. Often the speech is only an allusion to an event contained in the dream-thoughts; the meaning of the dream is quite different.
However, I shall not dispute the fact that even critical thought - activity, which does not simply repeat material from the dream - thoughts, plays a
part in dream-formation. I shall have to explain the influence of this factor at the close of this discussion. It will then become clear that this
thought activity is evoked not by the dream-thoughts, but by the dream itself, after it is, in a certain sense, already completed.
Provisionally, then, it is agreed that the logical relations between the dream-thoughts do not obtain any particular representation in the dream. For
instance, where there is a contradiction in the dream, this is either a contradiction directed against the dream itself or a contradiction contained in
one of the dream-thoughts; a contradiction in the dream corresponds with a contradiction between the dream-thoughts only in the most indirect
and intermediate fashion.
But just as the art of painting finally succeeded in depicting, in the persons represented, at least the intentions behind their words - tenderness,
menace, admonition, and the like - by other means than by floating labels, so also the dream has found it possible to render an account of certain
of the logical relations between its dream-thoughts by an appropriate modification of the peculiar method of dream-representation. It will be
found by experience that different dreams go to different lengths in this respect; while one dream will entirely disregard the logical structure of its
material, another attempts to indicate it as completely as possible. In so doing, the dream departs more or less widely from the text which it has to
elaborate; and its attitude is equally variable in respect to the temporal articulation of the dream-thoughts, if such has been established in the
unconscious (as, for example, in the dream of Irma's injection).
But what are the means by which the dream-work is enabled to indicate those relations in the dream-material which are difficult to represent? I
shall attempt to enumerate these, one by one.
In the first place, the dream renders an account of the connection which is undeniably present between all the portions of the dream-thoughts by
combining this material into a unity as a situation or a proceeding. It reproduces logical connections in the form of simultaneity; in this case it
behaves rather like the painter who groups together all the philosophers or poets in a picture of the School of Athens, or Parnassus. They never
were assembled in any hall or on any mountain-top, although to the reflective mind they do constitute a community.
The dream carries out in detail this mode of representation. Whenever it shows two elements close together, it vouches for a particularly intimate
connection between their corresponding representatives in the dream-thoughts. It is as in our method of writing: to signifies that the two letters
are to be pronounced as one syllable; while t with o following a blank space indicates that t is the last letter of one word and o the first letter of
another. Consequently, dream-combinations are not made up of arbitrary, completely incongruous elements of the dream-material, but of
elements that are pretty intimately related in the dream-thoughts also.
For representing causal relations our dreams employ two methods, which are essentially reducible to one. The method of representation more
frequently employed - in cases, for example, where the dream-thoughts are to the effect: "Because this was thus and thus, this and that must
happen" - consists in making the subordinate clause a prefatory dream and joining the principal clause on to it in the form of the main dream. If
my interpretation is correct, the sequence may likewise be reversed. The principal clause always corresponds to that part of the dream which is
elaborated in the greatest detail.
An excellent example of such a representation of causality was once provided by a female patient, whose dream I shall subsequently give in full.
The dream consisted of a short prologue, and of a very circumstantial and very definitely centred dream-composition. I might entitle it "Flowery
language." The preliminary dream is as follows: She goes to the two maids in the kitchen and scolds them for taking so long to prepare "a little
bite of food." She also sees a very large number of heavy kitchen utensils in the kitchen turned upside down in order to drain, even heaped up in
stacks. The two maids go to fetch water, and have, as it were, to climb into a river, which reaches up to the house or into the courtyard.
Then follows the main dream, which begins as follows: She is climbing down from a height over a curiously shaped trellis, and she is glad that
her dress doesn't get caught anywhere, etc. Now the preliminary dream refers to the house of the lady's parents. The words which are spoken in
the kitchen are words which she has probably often heard spoken by her mother. The piles of clumsy pots and pans are taken from an
unpretentious hardware shop located in the same house. The second part of this dream contains an allusion to the dreamer's father, who was
always pestering the maids, and who during a flood - for the house stood close to the bank of the river - contracted a fatal illness. The thought