The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud (1900)

new and further detours. But the number and form of the collaterals which we thus contrive during the day are, psychologically speaking,
indifferent, so long as they point the way to the dream-thoughts which we are seeking.
B. Regression
Now that we have defended ourselves against the objections raised, or have at least indicated our weapons of defence, we must no longer delay
entering upon the psychological investigations for which we have so long been preparing. Let us summarize the main results of our recent
investigations: The dream is a psychic act full of import; its motive power is invariably a wish craving fulfilment; the fact that it is unrecognizable
as a wish, and its many peculiarities and absurdities, are due to the influence of the psychic censorship to which it has been subjected during its
formation. Besides the necessity of evading the censorship, the following factors have played a part in its formation: first, a need for condensing
the psychic material; second, regard for representability in sensory images; and third (though not constantly), regard for a rational and intelligible
exterior of the dream-structure. From each of these propositions a path leads onward to psychological postulates and assumptions. Thus, the
reciprocal relation of the wish-motives, and the four conditions. as well as the mutual relations of these conditions, must now be investigated; the
dream must be inserted in the context of the psychic life.
At the beginning of this section we cited a certain dream in order that it might remind us of the problems that are still unsolved. The interpretation
of this dream (of the burning child) presented no difficulties, although in the analytical sense it was not given in full. We asked ourselves why,
after all, it was necessary that the father should dream instead of waking, and we recognized the wish to represent the child as living as a motive
of the dream. That there was yet another wish operative in the dream we shall be able to show after further discussion. For the present, however,
we may say that for the sake of the wish-fulfilment the thought-process of sleep was transformed into a dream.
If the wish-fulfilment is cancelled out, only one characteristic remains which distinguishes the two kinds of psychic events. The dream-thought
would have been: "I see a glimmer coming from the room in which the body is lying. Perhaps a candle has fallen over, and the child is burning!"
The dream reproduces the result of this reflection unchanged, but represents it in a situation which exists in the present and is perceptible by the
senses like an experience of the waking state. This, however, is the most common and the most striking psychological characteristic of the dream;
a thought, usually the one wished for, is objectified in the dream, and represented as a scene, or - as we think - experienced.
But how are we now to explain this characteristic peculiarity of the dream-work, or - to put it more modestly - how are we to bring it into relation
with the psychic processes?
On closer examination, it is plainly evident that the manifest form of the dream is marked by two characteristics which are almost independent of
each other. One is its representation as a present situation with the omission of perhaps; the other is the translation of the thought into visual
images and speech.
The transformation to which the dream-thoughts are subjected because the expectation is put into the present tense is, perhaps, in this particular
dream not so very striking. This is probably due to the special and really subsidiary role of the wish-fulfilment in this dream. Let us take another
dream, in which the dream-wish does not break away from the continuation of the waking thoughts in sleep; for example, the dream of Irma's
injection. Here the dream-thought achieving representation is in the conditional: "If only Otto could be blamed for Irma's illness!" The dream
suppresses the conditional, and replaces it by a simple present tense: "Yes, Otto is to blame for Irma's illness." This, then, is the first of the
transformations which even the undistorted dream imposes on the dream-thoughts. But we will not linger over this first peculiarity of the dream.
We dispose of it by a reference to the conscious phantasy, the day-dream, which behaves in a similar fashion with its conceptual content. When
Daudet's M. Joyeuse wanders unemployed through the streets of Paris while his daughter is led to believe that he has a post and is sitting in his
office, he dreams, in the present tense, of circumstances that might help him to obtain a recommendation and employment. The dream, then,
employs the present tense in the same manner and with the same right as the day-dream. The present is the tense in which the wish is represented
as fulfilled.
The second quality peculiar to the dream alone, as distinguished from the day-dream, is that the conceptual content is not thought, but is
transformed into visual images, to which we give credence, and which we believe that we experience. Let us add. however, that not all dreams
show this transformation of ideas into visual images. There are dreams which consist solely of thoughts, but we cannot on that account deny that
they are substantially dreams. My dream Autodidasker - the day-phantasy about Professor N is of this character; it is almost as free of visual
elements as though I had thought its content during the day. Moreover, every long dream contains elements which have not undergone this
transformation into the visual, and which are simply thought or known as we are wont to think or know in our waking state. And we must here
reflect that this transformation of ideas into visual images does not occur in dreams alone, but also in hallucinations and visions, which may
appear spontaneously in health, or as symptoms in the psychoneuroses. In brief, the relation which we are here investigating is by no means an
exclusive one; the fact remains, however, that this characteristic of the dream, whenever it occurs, seems to be its most noteworthy characteristic,
so that we cannot think of the dream-life without it. To understand it, however, requires a very exhaustive discussion.
Among all the observations relating to the theory of dreams to be found in the literature of the subject, I should like to lay stress upon one as
being particularly worthy of mention. The famous G. T. H. Fechner makes the conjecture,[15] in a discussion as to the nature of the dreams, that