February 19, 2011
| Category: Freud Works

6 I The Interpretation of Dreams

I. The Secondary Elaboration

[Psych Web editor's note: in later editions of The Interpretation of Dreams, this was rendered as "Secondary Revision" with a footnote saying previous editions used "the somewhat misleading English translation 'secondary elaboration.'"]

We will at last turn our attention to the fourth of the factors participating in dream-formation.

If we continue our investigation of the dream-content on the lines already laid down- that is, by examining the origin in the dream-thoughts of conspicuous occurrences- we come upon elements that can be explained only by making an entirely new assumption. I have in mind cases where one manifests astonishment, anger, or resistance in a dream, and that, too, in respect of part of the dream-content itself. Most of these impulses of criticism in dreams are not directed against the dream-content, but prove to be part of the dream-material, taken over and fittingly applied, as I have already shown by suitable examples. There are, however, criticisms of this sort which are not so derived: their correlatives cannot be found in the dream-material. What, for instance, is meant by the criticism not infrequent in dreams: “After all, it’s only a dream”? This is a genuine criticism of the dream, such as I might make if I were awake, Not infrequently it is only the prelude to waking; even oftener it is preceded by a painful feeling, which subsides when the actuality of the dream- state has been affirmed. The thought: “After all, it’s only a dream” in the dream itself has the same intention as it has on the stage on the lips of Offenbach’s Belle Helene; it seeks to minimize what has just been experienced, and to secure indulgence for what is to follow. It serves to lull to sleep a certain mental agency which at the given moment has every occasion to rouse itself and forbid the continuation of the dream, or the scene. But it is more convenient to go on sleeping and to tolerate the dream, “because, after all, it’s only a dream.” I imagine that the disparaging criticism: “After all, it’s only a dream,” appears in the dream at the moment when the censorship. which is never quite asleep, feels that it has been surprised by the already admitted dream. It is too late to suppress the dream, and the agency therefore meets with this remark the anxiety or painful emotion which rises into the dream. It is an expression of the esprit d’escalier on the part of the psychic censorship.

In this example we have incontestable proof that everything which the dream contains does not come from the dream-thoughts, but that a psychic function, which cannot be differentiated from our waking thoughts, may make contributions to the dream-content. The question arises, does this occur only in exceptional cases, or does the psychic agency, which is otherwise active only as the censorship, play a constant part in dream-formation?

One must decide unhesitatingly for the latter view. It is indisputable that the censoring agency, whose influence we have so far recognized only in the restrictions of and omissions in the dream-content, is likewise responsible for interpolations in and amplifications of this content. Often these interpolations are readily recognized; they are introduced with hesitation, prefaced by an “as if”; they have no special vitality of their own, and are constantly inserted at points where they may serve to connect two portions of the dream-content or create a continuity between two sections of the dream. They manifest less ability to adhere in the memory than do the genuine products of the dream-material; if the dream is forgotten, they are forgotten first, and I strongly suspect that our frequent complaint that although we have dreamed so much we have forgotten most of the dream, and have remembered only fragments, is explained by the immediate falling away of just these cementing thoughts. In a complete analysis, these interpolations are often betrayed by the fact that no material is to be found for them in the dream- thoughts. But after careful examination I must describe this case as the less usual one; in most cases the interpolated thoughts can be traced to material in the dream-thoughts which can claim a place in the dream neither by its own merits nor by way of over- determination. Only in the most extreme cases does the psychic function in dream-formation which we are now considering rise to original creation; whenever possible it makes use of anything appropriate that it can find in the dream-material.

Share this

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Related Posts

Most Popular Medicines On Online Pharmacy

paxil

Recent Posts