The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud (1900)

affect itself. Hence, I awake with thoughts of terror, even after the idea that perhaps my children will achieve what has been denied to their father
has forced its way to representation: a fresh allusion to the strange romance in which the identity of a character is preserved through a series of
generations covering two thousand years.
8. in the context of another dream there is a similar expression of astonishment at what is experienced in the dream. This, however, is connected
with such a striking, far-fetched, and almost intellectual attempt at explanation that if only on this account I should have to subject the whole
dream to analysis, even if it did not possess two other interesting features. On the night of the eighteenth of July I was travelling on the Southern
Railway, and in my sleep I heard someone call out: "Hollthurn, 10 minutes." I immediately think of Holothuria - of a natural history museum -
that here is a place where valiant men have vainly resisted the domination of their overlord. - Yes, the counter-reformation in Austria! - As though
it were a place in Styria or the Tyrol. Now I see indistinctly a small museum, in which the relics of the acquisitions of these men are preserved. I
should like to leave the train, but I hesitate to do so. There are women with fruit on the platform; they squat on the ground, and in that position
invitingly hold up their baskets. - I hesitated, in doubt as to whether we have time, but here we are still stationary. - I am suddenly in another
compartment in which the leather and the seats are so narrow that one's spine directly touches the back.[92] I am surprised at this, but I may have
changed carriages while asleep. Several people, among them an English brother and sister; a row of books plainly on a shelf on the wall. - I see
The Wealth of Nations, and Matter and Motion (by Maxwell), thick books bound in brown linen. The man asks his sister about a book of
Schiller's, whether she has forgotten it. These books seem to belong now to me, now to them. At this point I wish to join in the conversation in
order to confirm or support what is being said. I wake sweating all over, because all the windows are shut, The train stops at Marburg.
While writing down the dream, a part of it occurs to me which my memory wished to pass over. I tell the brother and sister (in English), referring
to a certain book: "It is from..." but I correct myself: "It is by..." The man remarks to his sister: "He said it correctly."
The dream begins with the name of a station, which seems to have almost waked me. For this name, which was Marburg, I substitute Hollthurn.
The fact that I heard Marburg the first, or perhaps the second time it was called out, is proved by the mention of Schiller in the dream; he was
born in Marburg, though not the Styrian Marburg.[93] Now on this occasion, although I was travelling first class, I was doing so under very
disagreeable circumstances. The train was overcrowded; in my compartment I had come upon a lady and gentleman who seemed very fine
people, and had not the good breeding, or did not think it worth while, to conceal their displeasure at my intrusion. My polite greeting was not
returned, and although they were sitting side by side (with their backs to the engine), the woman before my eyes hastened to pre-empt the seat
opposite her, and next to the window, with her umbrella; the door was immediately closed, and pointed remarks about the opening of windows
were exchanged. Probably I was quickly recognized as a person hungry for fresh air. It was a hot night, and the atmosphere of the compartment,
closed on both sides, was almost suffocating. My experience as a traveller leads me to believe that such inconsiderate and overbearing conduct
marks people who have paid for their tickets only partly, or not at all. When the conductor came round, and I presented my dearly bought ticket,
the lady exclaimed haughtily and almost threateningly: "My husband has a pass." She was an imposing-looking person, with a discontented
expression, in age not far removed from the autumn of feminine beauty; the man had no chance to say anything; he sat there motionless. I tried to
sleep. In my dream I take a terrible revenge on my disagreeable travelling companions; no one would suspect what insults and humiliations are
concealed behind the disjointed fragments of the first half of the dream. After this need has been satisfied, the second wish, to exchange my
compartment for another, makes itself felt. The dream changes its scene so often, and without making the slightest objection to such changes, that
it would not have seemed at all remarkable had I at once, from my memories, replaced my travelling companions by more agreeable persons. But
here was a case where something or other opposes the change of scene, and finds it necessary to explain it. How did I suddenly get into another
compartment? I could not positively remember having changed carriages. So there was only one explanation. I must have left the carriage while
asleep - an unusual occurrence, examples of which, however, are known to neuropathologists. We know of persons who undertake railway
journeys in a crepuscular state, without betraying their abnormal condition by any sign whatever, until at some stage of their journey they come to
themselves, and are surprised by the gap in their memory. Thus, while I am still dreaming, I declare my own case to be such a case of
automatisme ambulatoire.
Analysis permits of another solution. The attempt at explanation, which so surprises me if I am to attribute it to the dream-work, is not original,
but is copied from the neurosis of one of my patients. I have already spoken in another chapter of a highly cultured and kindly man who began,
shortly after the death of his parents, to accuse himself of murderous tendencies, and who was distressed by the precautionary measures which he
had to take to secure himself against these tendencies. His was a case of severe obsessional ideas with full insight. To begin with, it was painful to
him to walk through the streets, as he was obsessed by the necessity of accounting for all the persons he met; he had to know whither they had
disappeared; if one of them suddenly eluded his pursuing glance, he was left with a feeling of distress and the idea that he might possibly have
made away with the man. Behind this obsessive idea was concealed, among other things, a Cain-phantasy, for "all men are brothers." Owing to
the impossibility of accomplishing this task, he gave up going for walks, and spent his life imprisoned within his four walls. But reports of
murders which had been committed in the world outside were constantly reaching his room by way of the newspapers, and his conscience
tormented him with the doubt that he might be the murderer for whom the police were looking. The certainty that he had not left the house for
weeks protected him for a time against these accusations, until one day there dawned upon him the possibility that he might have left his house
while in an unconscious state, and might thus have committed murder without knowing anything about it. From that time onwards he locked his
front door, and gave the key to his old housekeeper, strictly forbidding her to give it into his hands, even if he demanded it.
This, then, is the origin of the attempted explanation that I may have changed carriages while in an unconscious state; it has been taken into the
dream ready-made, from the material of the dream-thoughts, and is evidently intended to identify me with the person of my patient. My memory