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Page 21
Whosoever has firmly accepted this _censorship_ as the chief motive for
the distortion of dreams will not be surprised to learn as the result of
dream interpretation that most of the dreams of adults are traced by
analysis to erotic desires. This assertion is not drawn from dreams
obviously of a sexual nature, which are known to all dreamers from their
own experience, and are the only ones usually described as "sexual
dreams." These dreams are ever sufficiently mysterious by reason of the
choice of persons who are made the objects of sex, the removal of all
the barriers which cry halt to the dreamer's sexual needs in his waking
state, the many strange reminders as to details of what are called
perversions. But analysis discovers that, in many other dreams in whose
manifest content nothing erotic can be found, the work of interpretation
shows them up as, in reality, realization of sexual desires; whilst, on
the other hand, that much of the thought-making when awake, the thoughts
saved us as surplus from the day only, reaches presentation in dreams
with the help of repressed erotic desires.
Towards the explanation of this statement, which is no theoretical
postulate, it must be remembered that no other class of instincts has
required so vast a suppression at the behest of civilization as the
sexual, whilst their mastery by the highest psychical processes are in
most persons soonest of all relinquished. Since we have learnt to
understand _infantile sexuality_, often so vague in its expression, so
invariably overlooked and misunderstood, we are justified in saying that
nearly every civilized person has retained at some point or other the
infantile type of sex life; thus we understand that repressed infantile
sex desires furnish the most frequent and most powerful impulses for the
formation of dreams.[1]
If the dream, which is the expression of some erotic desire, succeeds in
making its manifest content appear innocently asexual, it is only
possible in one way. The matter of these sexual presentations cannot be
exhibited as such, but must be replaced by allusions, suggestions, and
similar indirect means; differing from other cases of indirect
presentation, those used in dreams must be deprived of direct
understanding. The means of presentation which answer these requirements
are commonly termed "symbols." A special interest has been directed
towards these, since it has been observed that the dreamers of the same
language use the like symbols--indeed, that in certain cases community
of symbol is greater than community of speech. Since the dreamers do not
themselves know the meaning of the symbols they use, it remains a puzzle
whence arises their relationship with what they replace and denote. The
fact itself is undoubted, and becomes of importance for the technique of
the interpretation of dreams, since by the aid of a knowledge of this
symbolism it is possible to understand the meaning of the elements of a
dream, or parts of a dream, occasionally even the whole dream itself,
without having to question the dreamer as to his own ideas. We thus come
near to the popular idea of an interpretation of dreams, and, on the
other hand, possess again the technique of the ancients, among whom the
interpretation of dreams was identical with their explanation through
symbolism.
Though the study of dream symbolism is far removed from finality, we now
possess a series of general statements and of particular observations
which are quite certain. There are symbols which practically always have
the same meaning: Emperor and Empress (King and Queen) always mean the
parents; room, a woman[2], and so on. The sexes are represented by a
great variety of symbols, many of which would be at first quite
incomprehensible had not the clews to the meaning been often obtained
through other channels.
There are symbols of universal circulation, found in all dreamers, of
one range of speech and culture; there are others of the narrowest
individual significance which an individual has built up out of his own
material. In the first class those can be differentiated whose claim can
be at once recognized by the replacement of sexual things in common
speech (those, for instance, arising from agriculture, as reproduction,
seed) from others whose sexual references appear to reach back to the
earliest times and to the obscurest depths of our image-building. The
power of building symbols in both these special forms of symbols has not
died out. Recently discovered things, like the airship, are at once
brought into universal use as sex symbols.
It would be quite an error to suppose that a profounder knowledge of
dream symbolism (the "Language of Dreams") would make us independent of
questioning the dreamer regarding his impressions about the dream, and
would give us back the whole technique of ancient dream interpreters.
Apart from individual symbols and the variations in the use of what is
general, one never knows whether an element in the dream is to be
understood symbolically or in its proper meaning; the whole content of
the dream is certainly not to be interpreted symbolically. The knowledge
of dream symbols will only help us in understanding portions of the
dream content, and does not render the use of the technical rules
previously given at all superfluous. But it must be of the greatest
service in interpreting a dream just when the impressions of the dreamer
are withheld or are insufficient.
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