Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
In attempting a discussion of the Interpretation of Dreams, Ido not believe that I have overstepped the bounds of neuropathologicalinterest. For, on psychological investigation,the dream proves to be the first link in a chain of abnormalpsychic structures whose other links, the hysterical phobia,the obsession, and the delusion must, for practical reasons,claim the interest of the physician. The dream (as willappear) can lay no claim to a corresponding practical significance;its theoretical value as a paradigm is, however, allthe greater, and one who cannot explain the origin of thedream pictures will strive in vain to understand the phobias,obsessive and delusional ideas, and likewise their therapeuticimportance.
But this relation, to which our subject owes its importance,is responsible also for the deficiencies in the work before us.The surfaces of fracture which will be found so frequently inthis discussion correspond to so many points of contact atwhich the problem of the dream formation touches morecomprehensive problems of psychopathology, which cannot bediscussed here, and which will be subjected to future elaborationif there should be sufficient time and energy, and if furthermaterial should be forthcoming.
Peculiarities in the material I have used to elucidate theinterpretation of dreams have rendered this publication difficult.From the work itself it will appear why all dreamsrelated in the literature or collected by others had to remainuseless for my purpose; for examples I had to choose betweenmy own dreams and those of my patients who were underpsychoanalytic treatment. I was restrained from utilisingthe latter material by the fact that in it the dream processeswere subjected to an undesirable complication on accountof the intermixture of neurotic characters. On the othervihand, inseparably connected with my own dreams was the circumstancethat I was obliged to expose more of the intimaciesof my psychic life than I should like and than generally fallsto the task of an author who is not a poet but an investigatorof nature. This was painful, but unavoidable; I had to putup with the inevitable in order not to be obliged to foregoaltogether the demonstration of the truth of my psychologicalresults. To be sure, I could not at best resist the temptationof disguising some of my indiscretions through omi