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 FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 
 
 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 BY 
 
 A. A. BRILL, Ph.B., M.D. 
 
 LECTURER ON PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY, 
 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY. 
 
 m 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 
 
 1921
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 There are a number of misconceptions concerning psycho- 
 analysis, some of which at least I would like to clear up. 
 In 1908, when I first introduced psychoanalysis into this 
 country, I addressed myself primarily to the medical pro- 
 fession, for psychoanalysis was developed by Prof. Freud 
 while he studied the border-line cases of mental disturb- 
 ances, and my interest was merely that of a psychiatrist 
 who vainly tried to help such patients and finally found in 
 psychoanalysis the most valuable instrument for the treat- 
 ment and exploration of the mind. But even then it was 
 realized that the subjects treated by psychoanalysis went 
 far beyond pure medical spheres, for when a human mind 
 was entered for the purpose of studying the origin of an 
 abnormal manifestation, all his normal mental and emo- 
 tional expressions had to be considered. In the course of 
 many years Prof. Freud thus solved the mysteries of 
 dreams, wit, mythology, fairy tales, and threw much light 
 on the history of civilization and on the development of 
 religion and philosophy, — subjects and phenomena which, 
 strictly speaking, do not belong to abnormal states. It was 
 therefore quite natural to expect that persons interested 
 in the above mentioned subjects would be attracted also 
 to psychoanalysis, and a review of the very extensive 
 psychoanalytic literature shows that it not only drew to 
 itself the attention of the medical profession but also 
 that of the psychologist, educator, and serious minded lay- 
 
 iii
 
 iv INTRODUCTION 
 
 man, and notwithstanding some uninformed individuals to 
 the contrary, much good has already been accomplished. 
 Last but not least it has also attracted many charlatans 
 and quacks who find in it a medium for the exploitation 
 of the ignorant classes by promising to cure all their ail- 
 ments by psychoanalysis. This, as everyone knows, is 
 nothing new in medicine; there is no disease which is not 
 cured by quacks. One could therefore easily remain silent 
 and think that any person who is foolish enough to entrust 
 his mind to quacks deserves no consideration, but as I feel 
 somewhat responsible for psychoanalysis in this country, I 
 merely wish to say that, whereas psychoanalysis is as 
 wonderful a discovery in mental science as, let us say, the 
 X-ray in surgery, it can be utilized only by persons who 
 have been trained in anatomy and pathology. As a thera- 
 peutic agent psychoanalysis at best has a very limited 
 field, it can only be used in the treatment of special cases. 
 It cannot cure cancer, it cannot make an adjustable citizen 
 out of a defective "radical," it cannot return an arrant young 
 husband to a neurotic elderly lady, it has no more to do 
 with the separation of mismated couples than the micro- 
 scope with the dissolutions of tissues ; in fine it cannot make 
 a normal person out of an idiot, and does not give a 
 philosophy of life to a person who has not brains enough 
 to formulate one himself. But it has already rewritten all 
 the mental sciences, and in the hands of trained psychi- 
 atrists it can cure the most chronic psychoneurotic affec- 
 tions. Moreover, the knowledge gained through it is de- 
 veloping a prophylaxis, which will not only diminish nervous 
 and mental diseases but will establish newer methods in 
 our system of education. In brief, psychoanalysis aside 
 from its therapeutic application, which is not the object 
 of this work, is of interest to any person who wishes to
 
 INTRODUCTION v 
 
 understand human nature and know himself in the Socratic 
 sense. 
 
 The material found in this book is taken from the lec- 
 tures given at my elementary course at the department of 
 pedagogics of the New York University. This course is 
 primarily intended for those who are occupying themselves 
 with problems of education and psychology. But as it is 
 impossible to talk about the normal individual without show- 
 ing what would happen to a child if subjected to a peculiar 
 or special kind of environment, I have given illustrative 
 cases from abnormal spheres as well as brief, in no way 
 technical, descriptions of some forms of mental derange- 
 ments. I have also tried to avoid technical expressions as 
 much as possible, and have not taken the trouble to clutter 
 this volume with a lot of references, which a book intended 
 for professional people would necessarily demand, but any- 
 one knowing of my activities realizes that all my work is 
 built on Prof. Freud's foundations, and are referred to his 
 works for more detailed and more technical information. 
 
 Mr. Sydney M. Frankel, one of my former students, has 
 given me very valuable suggestions, and relieved me of 
 the task of indexing this book. I am very much indebted 
 
 to him. 
 
 A. A. Brill 
 November, 1921.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Cathartic Method ...... i 
 
 II. The Symptom : Its Nature and Function . 25 
 
 III. The Psychology of Forgetting .... 47 
 
 IV. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EvERY-DaY LlFE . . ?6 
 
 V. Wit : Its Technique and Tendencies . . 113 
 
 VI. The Dream : Its Function and Motive . . 139 
 
 VII. The Dream : Its Function and Motive 
 
 (continued) 158 
 
 VIII. Types of Dreams 184 
 
 IX. Types of Dreams (continued) 221 
 
 X. Common Forms of Insanity 253 
 
 XL The Only Child 279 
 
 XII. Fairy Tales and Artistic Productions . . 296 
 
 XIII. Selection of Vocations 313 
 
 Index 337 
 
 vu
 
 FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 
 OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 
 
 ". . . It is by utterance that we live. . . ." 
 
 Psychoanalysis is a term that was fully developed by- 
 Professor Sigmund Freud and his pupils, and, etymologically, 
 means mental analysis. We hear about all kinds of psycho- 
 analysis, but the psychoanalysis that we are going to study is 
 a mental analysis of a special kind that works with special 
 instruments ; it means the analysis of normal and abnormal 
 activities by a certain definite method, — through the analysis 
 of dreams, psychopathological actions, hallucinations, delu- 
 sions, and psychic attacks of all kinds which we find in the 
 abnormal spheres. It was originally developed by working 
 with the so-called border-line cases of mental diseases ; that is 
 to say, Professor Freud treated cases of so-called nervous- 
 ness which the average physician puts under such headings as 
 neurasthenia, hysteria, obsessions, and phobias. In order that 
 we may understand fully how the subject of psychoanalysis 
 was evolved, it seems to me desirable to say a few words 
 about the early history of mental diseases. 
 
 The first scientific description of insanity dates back to 
 460 B. C. ; at that time Hippocrates considered mental 
 disturbances as abnormalities due to some abnormal con- 
 dition in the brain. Following him there was a long period 
 
 1
 
 2 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 of intermission, but one may find clinical descriptions by 
 such men as Aretseus in 60 A. D., by Galen in 160 A. D., 
 
 and by many others. During the middle ages 
 survey the subject was not only neglected, but a great 
 Nervous retrogression followed. Insane people were 
 Mental treated most cruelly, and like criminals were 
 
 chained and put to death for being obsessed. But 
 with the advance of civilization, the insane began to receive 
 more and more attention, and in 1792 Professor Philippe 
 Pinel of Paris brought about the abolition of chaining. He 
 was the first one to recognize that the insane person was a 
 sick person and not a demon or criminal, and since his time 
 there has been a gradual tendency toward both ameliorating 
 the condition of the insane and understanding the nature of 
 insanity generally. 
 
 Modern or present-day psychiatry dates back about 
 twenty-five years or perhaps even less. But we may say that 
 long before then individual efforts had been made to study 
 the subject intelligently and scientifically, and we find ac- 
 cordingly a great many scientific contributions to catatonia 
 and other diseases. But yet most of the text-books then 
 current talked about mania and melancholia as if they were 
 diseases by themselves. Nowadays we know, of course, that 
 melancholia or mania are not diseases ; it would be just as 
 wrong to call coughing a disease. We all know that coughing 
 is only a symptom of a disease; it is not an entity. That 
 is to say, one may cough because he has tuberculosis, or 
 perhaps an ordinary so-called cold. And so, too, with mania. 
 Among the insane there is no form of insanity that may not 
 show a period of that so-called mania. It is just a symptom. 
 And so, as you see, symptoms were taken for diseases and 
 there were a great many misunderstandings. I have seen on 
 record at hospitals for the insane where a patient has been 
 diagnosed, say in 1880, as a case of mania, two years later
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 3 
 
 as a case of melancholia, three years later, again as a case of 
 mania, and five years later the patient died of softening of 
 the brain. This occurred simply because the doctors did not 
 know any better, and this is still true of the ordinary prac- 
 titioners, particularly of those doctors who have received 
 their education under the old regime. 
 
 It was Professor Kraepelin, at that time of Heidelberg, 
 who evolved modern mental science. He was a pupil of the 
 great psychologist Wundt, and he discovered that the insane 
 followed definite characteristics not only in the manifesta- 
 tions of their abnormal perceptions but also in the whole 
 course of their disease. Kraepelin did for mental diseases 
 what Virchow did for pathology. The latter held that we 
 must know how the organs look in order to diagnose a 
 disease. He examined diseased lungs, for instance, and 
 found they showed certain characteristic features. But of 
 course it was not until the microscope was used that real 
 entities were established, for though a diseased lung may 
 appear tubercular to the naked eye, it may not be that at all 
 when studied and compared under the microscope. In 
 mental diseases, the microscope is psychoanalysis. For 
 years no effort was made to find out what the patient said, 
 or, if he said anything at all, what it meant. It was suffi- 
 cient when he was taken to the hospital, to write in our notes 
 that he was dull, stupid, and demented. What all that really 
 meant made little difference. When I came to the State 
 Hospital, I examined a patient's record of twenty years. 
 I would read, — 1882, patient dull, stupid, and demented; 
 then a few years later, patient demented, dull, and stupid, 
 and so on until they almost exhausted all possible permu- 
 tations and combinations. Then "the patient suddenly 
 died." 
 
 With Kraepelin's work, however, which was introduced 
 here mainly through the efforts of Adolf Meyer, there was
 
 4 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 a marked improvement. Psychological entries were regu- 
 larly made, every history was comprehensively noted, and 
 particular attention was paid to the general behavior of the 
 patient. We noted, for instance, what the patient said and 
 did, whether he showed any hallucinatory and delusional 
 trends, such as imagining that he is an emperor of Japan 
 and that he was robbed of his throne, or whether he was 
 just indifferent to his environments. His intelligence, mem- 
 ory and orientation were thoroughly tested, and last but not 
 least he received a thorough physical and neurological exam- 
 ination. Only after such an examination did one venture 
 the diagnosis. However, when one reads a number of 
 histories of the same disease entity, say, dementia praecox, 
 one will readily observe that there are no two cases exactly 
 alike. And Kraepelin and his school never asked why it 
 was that patient A had hallucinations of hearing a woman 
 calling him endearing names, and why patient B heard a 
 little child crying "mother," and why patient C heard a man 
 speaking to her. No effort was made to find out why this 
 was so, until Professor Freud published his original studies 
 of the so-called border-line cases of mental diseases. 
 
 When we began to examine the nature of hallucinations 
 and delusions, we found for example that there is a definite 
 reason why such and such a woman sat in a corner of the 
 room at the hospital and fondled a doll made of rags and 
 newspapers, talking to it as though it were her baby. When 
 we investigate this woman's life, we find that she had an only 
 child and lost it, and thus became insane. When a woman 
 talks to herself, as it were, we find upon examination that 
 she misses that person to whom she talks. I have in mind 
 at present a woman who continually converses with her 
 imaginary bridegroom. Upon investigation it is found that 
 on her wedding day, when all the guests and relatives were 
 assembled, he took short leave and did not come. Every-
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 5 
 
 body, of course, went home and bitterly inveighed against 
 him ; she alone tried to defend him. She was stupefied and 
 could not imagine that he would not come; she begged the 
 people to wait, and they continued to wait for hours, but 
 the man never appeared. Then suddenly she ran to the door 
 and exclaimed that she heard him talking to her, and since 
 then she has been at the hospital for the insane. 
 
 Before Freud developed psychoanalysis, it was commonly 
 held that if a person is nervous, there must be something 
 wrong with his physical make-up, though this could not be 
 substantiated by examination. Such patients have always 
 formed a very large class of cases, complaining of all sorts 
 of aches and pains, peculiar feelings, morbid fears and ob- 
 sessive thoughts, for which there was no physical basis. Dr. 
 Beard, an American physician, concluded that as nothing 
 wrong could be ascertained in the physical examination of 
 such cases, there was necessarily something wrong with their 
 nerves, and he therefore designated this whole class of cases 
 as neurasthenia, which means a weakness of nerves. As a 
 matter of fact, these cases really show no more "weakness of 
 nerves" than people who have no such complaints to offer. 
 But Dr. Beard thought that the nerve fibers must be weak, 
 for apparently there was no heart trouble, nor lung trouble, 
 nor anything else that was organically wrong, to account for 
 the patients' complaints. Various remedies were used in 
 neurasthenia but the treatment was purely symptomatic. 
 Thus if the patients were excited the medicine quieted them, 
 if dull or depressed they were stimulated. But whatever 
 was the remedy, they did not recover ; they kept on taking 
 these drugs and continually returning to the doctor, much 
 to the disgust of both physician and patient. I may say that 
 fully eighty percent of patients that consult doctors suffer 
 from such complaints, as has been shown by the experience 
 of numbers of consultants. They represent the largest class
 
 6 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 of patients that we find in clinics, dispensaries, and private 
 practice. Of course, they may be helped somewhat, but 
 that only temporarily. Years ago, when I worked in five 
 different clinics and dispensaries in New York, I would 
 come in touch with patients who had made the acquaintance 
 of all of them. I would treat a woman in the Vanderbilt 
 Clinic and then meet her in the Bellevue dispensary ; she 
 looked quite abashed and sorry, and declared apologetically 
 that the medicine she received from me in the first clinic no 
 longer did her any good. And so these patients kept on 
 moving from one hospital to another, and as a matter of 
 fact, they still do to this day. 
 
 About 1880 Professor Heinrich Erb of the University of 
 Heidelberg discovered the therapeutic value of electricity. 
 It soon became the rage ; it was used in the diagnosis as well 
 as in the treatment. Every nervous person was sooner or 
 later initiated into the mystery of electrical shocks ; when 
 the ordinary ones proved ineffective, new forms of electrical 
 sparks were invented. But at best such treatment only 
 served as a form of suggestion. In a few weeks the patient 
 would come back with some new ailment. Electricity may 
 do some temporary good, but it never cures. A little 
 electricity, a dose of medicine, or a cold bath or massage may 
 help a little, but I do not hesitate to say that I have never 
 seen a chronic case that was cured by such means. Like the 
 other practitioners of his time, Professor Freud resorted to 
 all the remedies at his disposal but the results were very dis- 
 couraging. 
 
 It was at this time that Freud read about Professor Charcot 
 of Paris, who was experimenting with hypnotism. Charcot 
 found that he could hypnotize a hysterical person and sug- 
 gest to her the symptom of another person and the patient 
 would have this symptom. In other words, he maintained 
 that hysterical symptoms can be suggested through hypno-
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 7 
 
 tism, and if they can be suggested, they can also be re- 
 moved by hypnotism. Let me say, in passing, that hypno- 
 tism is nothing quite as strange and mysterious as you gen- 
 erally imagine. Do not think that a person can be hypno- 
 tized volens nolens in the manner shown on the vaudeville 
 stage. No one can be hypnotized against his will. But 
 there is no doubt that if people are willing, they can usually 
 be hypnotized. Charcot's experiments soon became widely 
 known in the scientific world. As soon as Freud heard 
 about these new studies, he left his practice, went to Paris, 
 and became one of Charcot's favorite pupils. He worked 
 with him for about two years. 
 
 When Freud came back to Vienna, he at once decided to 
 utilize his knowledge on cases of neurasthenia. He had a 
 friend older than himself, Dr. Breuer, a man of TJie 
 great learning, and recognized in Europe for his ^jS 3 * 
 attainments in medical and scientific subjects, who cure" 
 took considerable interest in his career. Naturally he was 
 very eager to know all about Charcot's work and after 
 Freud explained to him what the noted neurologist was 
 doing in hysteria, Breuer began to describe what he con- 
 sidered an unusually interesting case. He told his younger 
 friend about a woman whom he thought to be intelligent 
 and refined and who was suffering from a severe case of 
 hysteria. She had been treated by some of the most prom- 
 inent neurologists in Europe and finally came back to 
 Breuer, her family physician. One day she said to him : 
 "Dr. Breuer, if you would only let me talk to you and if I 
 could tell you how my difficulties started, I think we could 
 do something." Dr. Breuer was sympathetic and told her 
 to go right ahead. She began to tell him of a paralysis she 
 had, and presently she went into an intimate account of her 
 life; she talked on and on with much feeling, and when he 
 reminded her, in a frank and friendly way, that he could give
 
 8 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 her no more time, she asked him for an appointment to come 
 again. Every time she came and talked for an hour she felt 
 appreciably better ; she called it the "talking cure." She in- 
 sisted upon calling on him just to talk. She would tell him 
 when a certain symptom came, how she suffered, about her 
 intimate affairs, and about such and such a dream. She 
 spoke about things that a doctor would not generally think 
 of listening to. It meant quite a tax on his time, but he 
 was anxious to help her. He became attached to her and 
 sympathized with her emotional difficulties ; and gradually 
 she was losing one symptom after another. It seemed 
 strange to Breuer ; he had given this woman all sorts of 
 medicines, another doctor had given her hot and cold baths, 
 and another electricity; and now she came merely to tell 
 him stories and was getting well. 
 
 To Freud this story was full of significance ; it opened up 
 problems to him that he had been pondering for years. He 
 asked himself why this woman should be getting well by 
 merely talking. As he went deeper and deeper into the 
 problem, he became more and more convinced of one funda- 
 mental principle. He began to see more and more clearly 
 that the whole idea was, that if the patient could go back 
 to the origin of the symptom, then the symptom would dis- 
 appear. The great difficulty, however, was that it took so 
 much time. When a person comes to you and tells you 
 about his or her life and you have to be a sympathetic listen- 
 er and live through that life, as it were, you cannot go 
 through with it in the twinkling of an eye; life is long, and 
 it takes time to track its undercurrents, and a person's 
 thoughts do not run in seconds ; it is not a matter of feeling 
 a pulse. Freud suggested that hypnotism be used in con- 
 junction with this "talking cure," for hypnotism is supposed 
 to broaden consciousness ; it opens up the whole mind ; no 
 resistances or inhibitions are offered; things come into the
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 9 
 
 mind and take root. A patient in the waking state will not 
 be able to answer questions, unless you give him a long time 
 to think and recall. Freud thought accordingly that it would 
 be a splendid idea to hypnotize her and ask her how and 
 when she got her symptom ; this would save so much time. 
 And so he and Breuer took the patient's history first, then 
 hypnotized her and asked her about her painful condition. 
 The patient would recall and tell everything, and gradually 
 the symptom disappeared. 
 
 Freud and Breuer worked together for some time and got 
 wonderful results; they were so impressed with this new 
 procedure that they called it the "Cathartic Method," which 
 means the purging of the mind, a^ort of unburdening of the 
 mind. In every-day life, we all know the therapeutic value 
 of expression ; when a person tells you his troubles he be- 
 gins to feel better ; we say a weight has been removed from 
 his heart. They took cases that had been resisting treatment 
 for years and cured them. They finally reported some of 
 them and formulated various theories. In the first place, 
 they found that all hysterics suffer from the past. Every 
 hysterical symptom represents some mental or emotional 
 disturbance that has taken place in the person's life in the 
 past; there were occurrences of a disagreeable and painful 
 nature which every individual likes to forget. The idea was 
 that if a patient can recall an unpleasant situation and live it 
 over, so to say, he loses the symptom ; that words are almost 
 equivalent to the action, and that in going over some painful 
 experience in the past, there is what is called an abreaction, 
 German, "Abrcagierung," in which the painful emotions as- 
 sociated with the experience are liberated and thus cease to 
 create physical disturbances. When the patient had a pain 
 in the face it was treated as neuralgia ; of course, it may 
 have been that or not. If it is neuralgia it will usually yield 
 to treatment, if not it is a psychic pain, a functional pain. It
 
 io PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 represents, in concrete form, the expression : "I felt as 
 though she slapped me in the face." When the painful 
 situation is brought back to the patient and explained to 
 him, the symptom disappears. 
 
 Let me make all this a little clearer by an example. A 
 woman has a pain in her arm; she consults the doctor, who 
 examines her and asks her whether she was out yesterday. 
 
 She says she was, and that the weather was bad and she 
 caught cold. He prescribes a medicine, but the pain con- 
 tinues. She returns to the doctor, he tries some other 
 remedy, but the pain grows worse. The patient is dis- 
 couraged and consults another physician ; she now merely 
 tells him she has rheumatism in her arm; she gives him the 
 symptoms; he takes it for granted that she has rheumatism 
 and treats her accordingly. She goes from doctor to doctor 
 until some diagnostician pronounces it hysterical and not 
 rheumatism. She consults a neurologist and we find this 
 story : She is a young woman who had made the acquaintance 
 of a college student. As time went on, they became more and 
 more intimate and it was rumored that they were to be mar- 
 ried; in fact she thought so too. Upon graduating, he left 
 the city and kept up a long correspondence with her. He 
 came and spent his vacations with her ; but he did not pro- 
 pose. The general impression was that, as he was a young 
 man, he wished to make his way in the world before he mar- 
 ried. Thus for years he came, spent his vacations with 
 her, and left without proposing. The last year he wrote her 
 with manifest enthusiasm that at last he had reached the goal 
 of his ambition: he had received an appointment with such 
 and such a salary. All the relatives heard about the letter 
 and were now quite sure he would marry her. He came for 
 his vacation, as usual, spent some time with her and took her 
 out for a long walk the night before he left. But he did 
 not propose. Everybody was disappointed ; the mother was
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD n 
 
 disgusted; her brother threatened to punch him in the face 
 when he came again ; and the poor girl was terribly grieved. 
 She was told to drop him and think no more of him ; she was 
 willing to do so but claimed that it was much easier said than 
 done. She argued that he must love her or else he would 
 not write and spend his vacations with her ; she felt that she 
 was his only confidante. She did not realize that there are 
 men who are so inhibited in their love life that they cannot 
 propose. She was experiencing a mental conflict. She 
 wanted to drop him; but there was no mistake about his 
 loving her. He was a serious, quiet, well-behaved man who 
 came from a very fine family and whom no one could accuse 
 of being a trifler. "He certainly is not an adventurer, be- 
 cause he does not act like one," she would think to herself ; 
 "but why, then, does he not propose?" I would like you to 
 notice the human, emotional element that enters into all 
 these cases. Gradually, however, she made up her mind 
 that he did not love her and that she would have nothing 
 more to do with him. In time she was even ready to write 
 to him not to correspond with her, but she could not gather 
 sufficient strength to do so. Gradually there came on that 
 pain in her arm. 
 
 When we go beyond the superficial aspects of this case, 
 we find that it goes back to a fundamental condition in the 
 past. We discover that the patient is suffering from the 
 past, that the pain in her arm is only a monument of the 
 past ; it is a memento, one might say, of her mental conflict. 
 In other words, when she was emotionally arguing with her- 
 self whether he loved her or not and when she had to re- 
 press all talk about him, and make herself believe that she 
 did not love him, her feelings, her emotions became converted 
 into that of pain. The arm was the arm that he pressed on 
 the night before he left. She would say to herself : "But what 
 about that feeling? He pressed my arm"; for then she had
 
 12 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 hoped that he would say the expected words. Analysis reveals 
 that it is that feeling that she wished to retain in memory that 
 became a pain ; it was a symbolic form of expression, for 
 she could not talk about it in any other way. Without hav- 
 ing to speak about the young man she could now uncon- 
 sciously retain this episode through the pain in the arm. 
 There was in a sense, a morbid gain. She could now talk 
 and complain about her pain and thus have some form of 
 expression, though the fundamental and deeper phase of 
 her condition was submerged and she knew nothing about 
 it. We see here a conversion of past emotion into some- 
 thing physical. 1 When the patient realized this deeper as- 
 pect of her condition and when the painful past experience 
 was brought to her consciousness she was cured. It was 
 after careful study and observation of such cases that the 
 idea was postulated, then, first, that one can convert psychic 
 energy into physical manifestations, and secondly that a cure 
 is effected by bringing the submerged painful experience to 
 consciousness, thus releasing the strangulated emotions. 
 This new viewpoint meant an enormous step forward. 
 
 We may see from the above case that what Breuer and 
 Freud brought to the surface by the Cathartic Method were 
 
 those things that the patient found disagreeable 
 con- and painful, things that the patient could not talk 
 
 Fore- ' about. This young woman could not complain of 
 
 scio"u3 the fact that the young man did not propose to 
 
 uncon- her for so many years; and of course, if it is 
 
 essentially a sexual situation, no sensitive person 
 can speak about it openly, particularly a woman. In 
 
 *This conversion of mental into physical elements takes place in 
 a certain definite way. This particular patient had the reminiscence 
 of the arm, so it was in the arm ; sometimes it is in the nose, hair 
 or any other organ or bodily function. It is hard to realize how 
 many different complaints one hears from patients of this type.
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 13 
 
 other words, they formulated the theory that the patient 
 suffers from what we call strangulated emotions, certain 
 feelings and ideas which we would like to give vent to, but 
 cannot. We say they are finally pushed into the uncon- 
 scious, and we postulate such a thing as unconscious, that is, 
 something of which the person is absolutely unaware and 
 which he cannot, through any effort of his own, bring to 
 consciousness. In the Zurich school, which I shall have oc- 
 casion to speak about later, we thought of the emotions thus 
 associated with a painful experience as forming a complex. 
 We defined it as an idea or group of ideas accentuated and 
 colored over by profound emotional feelings which was 
 gradually relegated to the unconscious for the very reason 
 that it was of a distinctly painful nature and so could not 
 be kept in consciousness. We unconsciously run away from 
 distressing thoughts : we say we wish to forget them. These 
 strangulated ideas and emotions remain in the unconscious in 
 a dormant state, and any association may bring them to the 
 surface. 
 
 A woman, for instance, gets up one morning, feeling per- 
 fectly well ; she sits down to her desk to write a note to her 
 friend. She writes the date and stops; a feeling of sadness 
 gradually grows upon her, and she decides not to write. All 
 day she feels depressed ; it so happens that she comes to see 
 me and tells me about it. Upon talking to her, I find 
 that the moment she took her pen and wrote the date the 
 latter struck a complex in her mind which evoked a certain 
 date that went back a great many years to a day when some- 
 thing extremely disagreeable happened to her. When she 
 became depressed, she knew nothing about it. She did not 
 consciously recall the original painful experience. She 
 merely experienced the emotion that went with the episode. 
 In this pushing out of what is painful from the field of 
 consciousness, we have an unconscious protective mechanism.
 
 H PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 We have to forget, so to say, a painful experience; if every- 
 thing disquieting and troublesome were to remain in con- 
 sciousness, life would be unbearable. But a word, an odor, 
 a sound, a color, may plunge you right back into that state 
 of mind of, let us say, ten years ago; you have completely 
 forgotten the whole situation, but the emotion, like an old 
 unwelcome visitor, comes up and depresses you. Some- 
 times the recurring emotions are pleasant ones, but usually 
 they are unpleasant. 
 
 In studying such cases we find that the painful episodes 
 are kept in the unconscious, because they could not be worked 
 off at the time of their occurrence. An individual ex- 
 periences a profound emotional shock and cannot give it ex- 
 pression ; it remains in a repressed condition ; and the only 
 way to liberate the pathological energy it has accumulated 
 is by bringing it to the plane of conscious expression. When 
 the patient talks about it, he is living it over in a very vital 
 sense. I have had a patient take a little statuette which was 
 on my desk and throw it on the floor and break it, simply 
 because he was intensely wrought up over a certain experi- 
 ence he recalled. I had a lady to-day in my office who was 
 greatly surprised at first and laughed, when I explained to 
 her the reason why she could not walk. Presently she 
 cried out: "Doctor, my legs are tingling." I told her she 
 could walk home, and she did. There was an abreaction; 
 we reached the crux of the emotional experience; the whole 
 situation was brought to her consciousness. 
 
 I would like you to notice that I am using the term "un- 
 conscious" and not "subconscious" which is used rather 
 loosely by many people to denote so many different things. 
 As we have already said, the unconscious, according to 
 Freud, includes all those psychic manifestations of which the 
 person is not aware. It is made up of repressed material, 
 that is, of the sum total of those psychic processes which
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 15 
 
 have been crowded out of consciousness from the very be- 
 ginning of childhood ; they are the primitive impulses that 
 have been inhibited and sublimated in the development of 
 the child. The child is originally a primitive being ; it is like 
 a little animal, and as it gradually gives up the gross animal 
 instincts, it represses them ; we say they are pushed into the 
 unconscious. We try to make a child do what it would not 
 do, if left by itself. There are primitive impulses in every 
 child which have to be curbed from the very beginning and 
 which form points of crystallization for future repressions. 
 An occurrence in one's life, at the age of fifty, for instance, 
 may be traced back to some childhood repression; there is 
 always some subtle and intimate connection in our present 
 emotional experience with something that occurred in the 
 past. Absorbed in the immediate synthetic significance of a 
 present experience we cannot stop to realize the important 
 part the past has had in molding it ; in a very real sense it 
 may be said that we are always elaborating upon old psychic 
 material. But what is more, these past elements lie in the un- 
 conscious and are prevented from coming to the surface by 
 the protective mechanism to which I have already drawn 
 your attention. 
 
 Then, too, there are the repressions which take place in 
 adult life; and because the late experiences of which they 
 consist have not been subjected to the same amount of re- 
 pression as the earlier and more primitive ones, we say they 
 remain in what is designated as the foreconscious. We 
 have, then, an unconscious, a foreconscious, and a conscious 
 plane, as it were. As we go along, I shall try to show you 
 how different psychic manifestations, such as neurotic 
 symptoms, or dreams, fall into one or another of these cate- 
 gories. We shall see that the psychoneurotic symptom is 
 the function of two separate systems, or psychic streams, 
 both striving for expression. One subjects the activity of
 
 16 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the other to a critique, which results in an exclusion from 
 consciousness. Now the criticizing system, or the fore- 
 conscious, is in closer relation to the one criticized, or the 
 unconscious; it stands like a screen between the unconscious 
 and consciousness. Both the unconscious and the fore- 
 conscious are unknown in the psychical sense, but the uncon- 
 scious is incapable of consciousness without external aid, 
 while the foreconscious can reach consciousness after it ful- 
 fills certain conditions which we shall take up later on. We 
 maintain that eight-ninths of all our actions are guided by 
 our unconscious and that consciousness as such is nothing but 
 an organ of perception. 
 
 For some time Freud and Breuer continued to treat cases 
 of hysteria and neurasthenia quite successfully; but they 
 The were soon confronted by a serious difficulty; they 
 
 artlo" found that a great many people who were sick 
 
 E^abo- 4 an< ^ nee ded help could not be hypnotized. They 
 rated were especially interested in a certain very in- 
 
 telligent woman whom they made every effort to hypnotize, 
 but without success. Finally Freud took her to Bernheim 
 in France, who was reputed to be able to hypnotize almost 
 all of his patients, but he, too, could do nothing with her. 
 What was to be done? Freud then thought of an experi- 
 ment that he saw in Bernheim's clinic. In hypnotism, if you 
 give the person what is called a post-hypnotic suggestion, 
 that is, tell him that at three o'clock, Friday, January 25th, 
 he is to come to a certain place, and take, let us say, an 
 umbrella there, precisely at that time he will experience a 
 feeling of inner compulsion, and if no physical conditions 
 intervene, he will try to carry out the suggestion. When 
 the person is in the hypnotic state and receives such a sug- 
 gestion, he is absolutely unconscious of it later; it is followed 
 by what we term post-hypnotic amnesia; he forgets com-
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 17 
 
 pletely the entire experience. I once performed this same 
 experiment with a nurse; a doctor was present to see how 
 it worked out. Exactly at the stated time she came; she 
 was under the impression that the doctor was one of my 
 patients, and though she knew very definitely that no one 
 was allowed to come into the office while I was being con- 
 sulted, she nevertheless made an effort to enter. The doctor 
 met her at the door and upon asking her what she wished, she 
 replied: "I must go in and get an umbrella; it is raining." 
 When he drew her attention to the fact that it was not rain- 
 ing she felt quite embarrassed. Thus without thinking, she 
 carried out the idea she had received in the hypnotic state. 
 In the same way, also, an alcoholic, for instance, will ex- 
 perience a feeling of nausea and will actually vomit when- 
 ever he tries to drink alcoholic beverages after he has re- 
 ceived a hypnotic suggestion to that effect. Of course, the 
 matter is not quite as simple as it may sound. 
 
 After such a post-hypnotic suggestion Bernheim would 
 ask the patient to try and recall what happened while he was 
 unconscious. The latter would say that he remembered 
 nothing ; he was urged on, however, to concentrate and think 
 until at first some vague reminiscence came to consciousness, 
 and finally the very suggestion that was given during the 
 hypnosis. Now Freud saw no reason why the same thing 
 could not be done with his patient who could not be 
 hypnotized; if it was possible to recall a post-hypnotic sug- 
 gestion, why should it be impossible to recall the episode as- 
 sociated with her symptom? He set about questioning the 
 woman ; at first she could recall nothing ; he would insist 
 upon her telling him what came to her mind, as she was con- 
 centrating her attention upon the symptom. She talked about 
 many things that had no apparent connection with the par- 
 ticular situation; she went on and on and he noted very 
 carefully everything she said. In this way, he finally reached
 
 18 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the origin of the symptom. He then found not only that 
 hypnotism was not necessary but that it was much better to 
 treat a patient without it, for people, as a rule, have an 
 almost instinctive dread of hypnosis. That is how he de- 
 veloped what he called the "continuous association method" ; 
 it was the most significant contribution to the psychoanalytic 
 procedure. 
 
 I would like to draw your attention, in this connection, to 
 a fundamental difference Freud pointed out between hypno- 
 tism and the psychoanalytic method. The former works, as 
 in painting, by putting on impressions, per via di porre, as 
 Leonardo da Vinci has so aptly expressed it; the latter 
 method by removing all extraneous material, per via di 
 levare. As the sculptor chisels a piece of marble into the 
 ideal shape, so also in psychoanalysis, we endeavor to bring 
 the individual into complete harmony and unity of char- 
 acter, by taking away all undesirable excrescences in the 
 forms of needless inhibitions imposed upon him by his en- 
 vironment. In hypnotism we disregard the individual's 
 mental make-up ; he is in an unconscious state and we simply 
 impose upon him some suggestion, in a bold, authoritative 
 fashion. In psychoanalysis we learn to know the patient; 
 we delve into the deeper mainsprings of his character; we 
 gain his confidence ; and when we have learnt his personality 
 and come into vital and intimate relations with it, we then re- 
 move, as the sculptor, all extraneous matter. We impose 
 nothing ; we merely eliminate and dispense with whatever is 
 superfluous, obstructive, and cumbrous. 
 
 Following this analogy I may add that there is also a 
 similarity in the relations that sculpture and psychoanalysis 
 respectively bear to the material with which each works. 
 Just as in the former the ultimate result of the artist's efforts, 
 his consummate achievement, will depend in large measure 
 upon the nature of the material that he uses, so in the latter,
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 19 
 
 the physician's ultimate success in the treatment will be de- 
 pendent to no small degree, on the character of the patient. 
 We are told that in creative work there is always a fine 
 blending of form and idea, of substance and execution. We 
 look upon Michelangelo's Moses in a spirit of profound awe; 
 how sublime and terrible does this old prophet appear! 
 But have you ever paused to consider for a moment how 
 ludicrous this powerful statue would be if instead of that 
 fine, white, clear marble, the sculptor had used, let us say, 
 some stone with black streaks running through it? And 
 likewise in psychoanalysis the physician can attain the best 
 results with the best type of individual only ; by that I mean, 
 a patient of the higher type mentally, morally, and in every 
 other respect. Psychoanalytic therapy can accomplish 
 nothing with the defective; the individual must be at least of 
 the average type to derive any marked benefits from the 
 treatment. 
 
 When we attempt to discover the origin of the symptom 
 through the free and continuous associations of the patient, 
 such as we have noted above, we find the way beset with 
 many difficulties. Many things have to be found out before 
 you can judge from the productions obtained from the 
 patient; you get a mass of material and you may soon lose 
 your way in it ; your have to know what it essentially means. 
 If you examine the actual productions that a person gives 
 you when you ask him to tell you what comes to his mind, 
 you will find a very peculiar state of affairs; you will then 
 realize that there is no such thing in the world as a clear 
 thinker. A patient has a jumble of thoughts running 
 through his mind and he feels that he would appear ridicu- 
 lous and stupid if he were to describe it ; he is naturally em- 
 barrassed and finds refuge in silence. Moreover, there are 
 certain perversities of nature that come to his mind, — 
 very delicate subjects indeed, that no one likes to talk about.
 
 20 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 Thus an enormous number of things emerge which he thinks 
 are quite irrelevant, family skeletons, and little buried secrets 
 that the doctor need not know. What is more, the very 
 thing you are seeking is kept down and held in the uncon- 
 scious by chains, as it were, because it is disagreeable and 
 painful. As we have said, there is a protective mechanism 
 on the part of the mind to prevent it from coming to the 
 surface; you must not know it, because if you do, it will 
 cause you pain. Another great difficulty is that the same 
 words have very often different meanings to different people ; 
 no two individuals talk exactly the same language; every- 
 body has his own way of expressing ideas; everybody has 
 his own mode of reaction to this world. There are some 
 expressions in every family that the uninitiated cannot under- 
 stand ; there is a sort of Freemasonry in every home. But 
 the greatest difficulty is that the language that we find in the 
 unconscious is different from that of our every-day life; 
 what I mean is, that in the unconscious conceptions are ex- 
 pressed in a different way than in conscious life, as I shall 
 show you more fully when we discuss the subject of dreams. 
 Now all this had to be fathomed, analyzed, elaborated, 
 weighed, and understood, before we could get at the heart of 
 the situation. 
 
 In thus probing the unconscious, Freud became impressed 
 with certain fundamental facts. For one thing, he began to 
 see more and more clearly that impressions are imperishable, 
 especially those we receive in early life. When we probe 
 the mind we always find that the individual receives the most 
 vital impressions that stand out for life and direct him, in 
 the beginning of his existence. The child's mind when born 
 is, in the words of Locke, a tabula rasa, a blank slate; the 
 child is endowed with certain elementary mechanisms that 
 will help it to sustain life ; gradually those impressions are 
 formed that are so vitally necessary for the proper adjust-
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 21 
 
 ment. Whether the individual will be the so-called normal 
 or abnormal person, whether he will be able to adjust him- 
 self to his environment or fall by the wayside, depends en- 
 tirely upon the nature of these early impressions. Given an 
 average amount of brains, every individual as he grows up 
 has certain tracks laid out for him by his environment; he 
 can follow those tracks and those only; if he attempts to get 
 off the track, he finds himself in trouble; he finds himself 
 incompatible with his environment, he collides with his 
 environment. It is thus of great importance to give 
 the individual enough tracks to be able to move freely 
 and at the same time not to come into conflict with his 
 fellow beings. From a very broad experience with nervous 
 and mental diseases, I feel that if everybody would un- 
 derstand this, all mothers and teachers particularly, we 
 could reduce nervous and mental diseases as much as we 
 have reduced diseases of small-pox and typhoid. We are 
 not afflicted with these time-old diseases to-day because we 
 know what produces them and have learnt to prevent them. 
 We can do likewise with a knowledge of the psychoanalytic 
 principles. Indeed the great service that psychoanalysis can 
 render to-day consists chiefly of prophylaxis ; as far as curing 
 patients is concerned, I feel rather pessimistic at present. 
 We can cure few in comparison with the overwhelming 
 numbers : the treatment can be carried out only by physicians 
 of experience with nervous and mental work; then, too, it 
 requires so much time that very many people cannot afford it. 
 I feel that it will take probably from twenty to thirty years 
 before we shall have enough institutions to afford needy 
 patients the benefits of psychoanalytic therapy. 
 
 There was also another fundamental thing that very 
 forcibly impressed Freud, as he continued treating and study- 
 ing his patients. He found that when they began to dwell 
 on their intimate personal experiences, they practically all
 
 22 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 would invariably bring up matters appertaining to sex. He 
 was so impressed with this fact that he asserted that in the 
 normal sex life no neurosis is possible. Even before him, 
 neurologists of the old school have always known that sex 
 played a part in nervous conditions, but to them it was just 
 gross sex, it meant just the physical elements of sex. Freud 
 formulated a new concept of sex. To him the sexual life 
 of the individual meant his love-life. He used the term in 
 the broadest sense, as embracing not merely the gross sexual, 
 or the physical elements, but all that we commonly associate 
 with love. He found that the conceptions of sex in vogue at 
 his time were practically all false. It was generally held that 
 there was no manifestation of sex until the boy or girl reached 
 the age of puberty, when, suddenly, and in some mysterious 
 way, the sexual impulses appeared. Freud found, however, 
 that there were sexual experiences, or feelings very much 
 allied to sex, at the age of six or seven, or even earlier. What 
 many people consider as something other than sex is really 
 an integral phase of it. Love and sex are the essential com- 
 ponents of the love-life and they go hand in hand. Let me 
 assure you that I have seen a number of cases where all so- 
 called love existed, but there could not be normal sex rela- 
 tions, and there was a separation or a divorce. Consider, 
 for instance, the case of a woman who marries a man after 
 being in love with him for about six years j upon marriage, 
 it is found that he cannot consummate his marital agreement ; 
 we find very soon a separation often followed by a divorce. 
 
 We maintain that sex is born with the individual just as 
 he is born with every other organ, every other function. The 
 child is born without teeth, but upon examination, you will 
 find that the pulps are there from which the teeth will later 
 come. The child has all the partial impulses of sex, of love, 
 and of the mechanisms that later go to make up the special- 
 ized function. You can actually see a child of a few weeks
 
 THE CATHARTIC METHOD 23 
 
 react to the feeling of like and dislike; observe an infant of 
 say a few weeks, smile at it and it will respond, frown at it 
 and it will make faces. What does a child of that age know, 
 you ask. It has these partial impulses at birth and it reacts 
 accordingly. This attitude toward sex has been subjected 
 to a great deal of criticism and Freud has been accused of 
 laying an undue amount of stress on sex; many have been 
 and still are opposed to his theories on that very account. 
 They declare that there are a great many cases that show 
 nothing irregular in their sexual life and yet are nervous. 
 Without going into details at present, I wish to say that my 
 own experience very definitely corroborates Freud's position. 
 Continuing to delve deeper and deeper into the recesses of 
 the mind, Freud also began to see more and more clearly the 
 intimate relation existing between the dream and the patient's 
 innermost thoughts and feelings. In dwelling on some sig- 
 nificant emotional experience, the patient would very often 
 say: "J ust at tnat time > * ^ad a P ecuuar dream. I was 
 walking and a man came up to me and attacked me; I was 
 terribly frightened; I tried to run but could not; I was just 
 rooted to the spot." At first Freud paid no more attention to 
 these dreams than any other intelligent man of his time. 
 But gradually, as he listened to them, he began to see that 
 they must have some place in the vital economy of the mind, 
 for everything in the physical or mental spheres must have 
 a function. In time he was convinced that the dream is not 
 a mere jumble, a senseless mechanism, but that it represents 
 frequently in symbolic form the person's inmost thoughts 
 and desires, that it represents a hidden wish. He thus de- 
 veloped his monumental work, the greatest in the century, in 
 my opinion, "The Interpretation of Dreams." He found that 
 the dream offered the best access, that it was the via rcgia, 
 as he put it, to the unconscious ; that it was of tremendous 
 help not only in the treatment, but also in the diagnosis.
 
 24 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 And finally, as Freud continued to observe and study his 
 cases more and more deeply, as his horizon widened and 
 widened all the time, he began to see more and more that 
 everything in the psychic life has meaning, everything has a 
 cause, nothing that the individual may do or say is meaning- 
 less. Every slip of the tongue, or mistake in writing, or some 
 unconscious gesture or movement has significance. I asked 
 a friend the other day over the 'phone where he had been 
 since his marriage ; and he replied that he went on a "money- 
 hoon." He meant to say "honeymoon," but when a man 
 marries, money begins to play a rather significant part. If 
 we pay attention to what is being said and done about us, 
 we shall find a tremendous amount of material that is un- 
 usually interesting. We will learn later on why we make 
 these mistakes. Freud's fascinating book on "The Psycho- 
 pathology of Everyday Life" deals with this subject and I 
 would advise those who are anxious to read his work to 
 begin with this one, for it is the simplest of all his writings. 
 In probing the unconscious, Freud thus discovered material 
 that is of the utmost importance not only in the treatment of 
 patients but also in the development of normal people, in edu- 
 cation, folklore, religion, art and literature, and every other 
 field of human interest. We may say that he has practically 
 rewritten all of mental science and created new concepts in 
 every sphere of mental activity. With his work as a starting 
 point, new fields of thought and investigation have opened all 
 the time, and there gradually has grown up an enormous 
 literature on psychoanalysis, swelling all the time in the 
 variety and range of the subject matter, all growing out of 
 the effort to help humanity, to treat those unfortunate people 
 for whom nothing could be done in the past, — the so-called 
 "nervous" people.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 
 
 In our previous discussion we noted that a neurotic symp- 
 tom, such as, for instance, the pain in that young woman's 
 arm, is really a monument of the past; that i» reu a> a 
 through the symptom the neurotic is able to concept 
 dwell on the painful episode in the past, to com- sex 
 plain, and weep over it very much like one who would 
 shed tears to-day over the battle of Lexington, or over 
 the Spanish inquisition. I said that the patient had to 
 repress certain ideas and emotions because they were in- 
 tolerable and distressing; he had to forget a disagreeable 
 situation to which he could not adequately react. We say 
 that the ideas and emotions were strangulated; that they 
 were pushed into the unconscious. It is different, of course, 
 with the average normal person: if he is insulted and feels 
 hurt, let us say, he will either try to retaliate, or if he cannot 
 do that out of weakness, or cowardice, he will very soon 
 manage to "get over," as we say, the whole affair, to shake 
 himself free from it. Some people, however, by virtue of the 
 fact that they are made of finer, more sensitive substance, 
 of perhaps better clay, cannot forget it and they will dwell on 
 it continually. They were commonly designated as nervous 
 persons, or neurotics ; they were generally considered as 
 being defective in one way or another, as mental degenerates. 
 From what I have already pointed out you may readily see 
 that this conception is entirely erroneous; that, on the con- 
 
 25
 
 26 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 trary, far from being mental degenerates, they are as a class 
 high types of individuals. 
 
 This does not mean, however, that those who are mentally 
 deficient do not have hysterical mechanisms. The crucial 
 point is that they do not manifest a definite neurosis as we 
 understand and describe it. When a young lady who has 
 been well-bred, experiences a sexual feeling, she will often 
 revolt against it; and particularly if she has not been en- 
 lightened in matters of sex, she will make an earnest efTort to 
 crowd it out of consciousness, because she regards the ex- 
 perience of and by itself as something distinctly ugly, wrong, 
 immoral. On the other hand, defectives who are never 
 able to assume those inhibitions that society has imposed 
 upon the average individual are thus able, by virtue of their 
 deficiency, to commit all sorts of immoral acts. Only a 
 woman who is a defective can be a prostitute in every real 
 sense of the word ; a normal woman might perhaps think of 
 being one, but only a moral idiot or an imbecile can be one. 
 The normal woman is so constituted that prostitution is alto- 
 gether out of the question; she may perhaps have some sort 
 of an amour with a man, but she will not resort to prostitu- 
 tion in the narrow sense of the word. Nor does a normal 
 man become a habitual criminal. He may swear off the 
 taxes, or take an occasional false oath, but he is not going to 
 make a practice of committing crimes. The inhibitions that 
 are imposed upon us by society are so strong and exacting 
 that we revert of ourselves to the time-old conclusion that 
 "honesty is the best policy" : it is the most sensible, the most 
 practical, the most pragmatic policy; it allows us a measure 
 of freedom that we otherwise could not enjoy. Neverthe- 
 less, there is no doubt that civilization with its manifold in- 
 hibitions, impositions, and prohibitions makes it indeed very 
 difficult for us to live. There is not a human being who does 
 not feel the burden of civilization lie heavy on his shoulders ;
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 27 
 
 and though we all bear the cross as patiently as we know 
 how, who of us in his heart of hearts does not find himself 
 sometimes discontented and complaining? That is the price 
 we have to pay for civilization. Sometimes the injustice 
 heaped upon a predisposed individual is so great and over- 
 whelming, that, as his deeper sense of morality stays his 
 rash hand from some criminal act, he becomes neurotic ; and 
 sometimes he goes even further, he becomes psychotic. That 
 is the way he tries to purge his bosom of all "perilous stuff." 
 
 I am using the terms "neurotic" and "psychotic" and I wish 
 that you note the difference between them. A neurosis is a 
 nervous disease or a nervous disturbance such as we have 
 seen in the case of the young woman who had that pain in 
 the arm, for instance. It has nothing to do with insanity. 
 The neurotic or psychoneurotic is perfectly sane. What is 
 more, he is usually above the average person in mental de- 
 velopment. A psychosis is a mental disorder; the psychotic 
 patient suffers from some form of insanity. He need not 
 necessarily, of course, have anything in common with the 
 mental defective. While I am on this point, I would also 
 have you distinguish functional from organic insanity. The 
 latter is due to some physical disturbance like certain poisons, 
 injuries to the brain, or abnormal growths. The functional 
 cases are those whose brains are apparently normal ; that is 
 to say, if you examine the brain of a paranoiac and that of a 
 brilliant man, you will find no essential difference between 
 them ; the former shows no pathological condition. 
 
 In mental diseases there are two important entities that 
 were discovered by Kraepelin, and as I shall have occasion 
 to refer to them from time to time, in this course of lectures, 
 it may be well to say a few words about them in this con- 
 nection. On some future occasion I hope to enter into them 
 in more detail. Kraepelin found that those young patients 
 whom he found in the hospital and who were diagnosed as
 
 28 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 sometimes suffering from mania, and sometimes from melan- 
 cholia, or other conditions, showed a definite form of in- 
 sanity which he called dementia praecox. It is a chronic, 
 progressive form of insanity, which once developed, can 
 never be cured, and only on rare occasions do sufferers of it 
 sufficiently improve to be sent home, in which case, they 
 cannot completely adjust themselves, and what is even more 
 distressing, they usually require constant care and atten- 
 tion. Probably seventy-five per cent of patients of this type 
 are between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five; when they 
 become insane, they may show symptoms of mania or melan- 
 cholia or both, but the principal feature is the emotional 
 deterioration. That is to say, what we first notice is that 
 they grow careless and indifferent about their personal ap- 
 pearance, their surroundings and the people about them. 
 A very intelligent college student, for instance, loses in- 
 terest in his work and does not care a farthing whether he 
 passes his examinations or not. Listless and unconcerned, 
 he sits and gazes into space ; doctors and parents regard this, 
 at first, as mere laziness. The condition continues for years ; 
 he may be taken to a doctor who diagnoses it as neurasthenia. 
 Some time later, he may suddenly do something quite ab- 
 surd and the parents wake up to the seriousness of the situa- 
 tion ; or he may commit some gross act in public and be ar- 
 rested and sent to the hospital for the insane. Now this is 
 one of the greatest entities in mental diseases. I may safely 
 say that the bulk in the insane hospitals is made up of just 
 this group and the prognosis is very bad. As I have said, 
 patients of this type never recover ; they sometimes improve 
 sufficiently for the average layman to consider normal, but 
 the majority of them never leave the asylum. They always 
 retain a mental scar. 
 
 Another entity which Kraepelin discovered was the so- 
 called manic depressive group of insanity; patients afflicted
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 29 
 
 with this disease manifest sometimes symptoms of mania, 
 that is, a condition of marked excitement and exaltation, and 
 sometimes melancholia, that is, a condition of extreme de- 
 pression and retardation of thought and action. He found 
 that cases that sometimes thus show mania and sometimes 
 melancholia run a definite course throughout life; they 
 usually have attacks of melancholia followed by mania, after 
 which there is an interval ranging from a few months to a 
 few years ; they then begin a new cycle. If you examine the 
 life history of a patient who may have such attacks, you find 
 that they last a certain period, and then he recovers. Such 
 patients are designated in common parlance, as crazy, par- 
 ticularly when they have the manic attacks. They may have 
 four or six or ten attacks of melancholia during their life, 
 soon shake off the depression and recover, and not show the 
 slightest mental scar. 
 
 When the first of these entities, dementia praecox, was in- 
 vestigated a few years ago in the Manhattan State Hospital 
 in New York, it was found that over 70 per cent of the cases 
 had open delusions of sex. If the investigation had gone a 
 little further, and sex were taken to mean what Freud gen- 
 erally designates as sex, that is, the individual's love-life, I 
 have not the slightest doubt but what it would have been 
 found to be 100 per cent. According to the common con- 
 ception of sex, in other words, a woman fondling a bundle 
 of rags, as if it were her baby, was not regarded as mani- 
 festing a sexual disturbance; we, however, look upon the 
 case as being sexual, because it deals with her love-life. If 
 people generally would regard sex in the light that we do, 
 they would readily see that it is present in all mental dis- 
 turbances. Thus Freud's dictum that no neurosis is possible 
 in a normal sex life holds true even in the psychosis. I 
 have had the privilege of addressing a large gathering of lay- 
 men some time ago, and it was noteworthy that after I had
 
 30 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 explained to them in what broad sense Freud and his pupils 
 use the term sex, their former resentment was gone; some of 
 them declared that if by sex we thus mean everything re- 
 lating and growing out of the love-life of the individual, 
 there was no question at all but what they were absolutely 
 in accord with our stand. 
 
 We can lay it down as a fundamental that if a person's 
 love-life is adequately adjusted, his adjustment to life gener- 
 ally is normal. On the other hand, those who are unadjusted, 
 suffering from a neurosis or psychosis, are maladjusted sex- 
 ually. Let us not imagine for a moment that there is anything 
 degenerate in an individual who is thus imbued with con- 
 scious or unconscious sex cravings; we are born with the 
 impulses, and it is only the person who does not possess them 
 that is really abnormal ; he is as unfortunate as those who are 
 born deaf and dumb. The normal average person has a love- 
 life and it has to manifest itself in some way; it is j'ust as 
 essential for a person to have an outlet in his love-life as to 
 have pure air and food to sustain himself ; if he has not, he 
 eventually has to suffer for it. Now civilization has 
 rendered the normal outlet very difficult: with the advance 
 of civilization the struggle for existence has been more and 
 more lightened, but as far as satisfying the emotion of love 
 is concerned, he finds himself in a somewhat embarrassing 
 and critical situation: with the advance of civilization, the 
 outward expression of love has become more and more diffi- 
 cult. Our sex impulses are most assiduously guarded ; 
 society is most severe in its censorship of all manifestations 
 of sex: the sex impulses are continually subjected to a merci- 
 less criticism. In our Anglo-Saxon communities, they have 
 not even the esthetic and social outlet, because of the too 
 great separation that we find between the sexes. The result 
 is that, owing to the matrimonial difficulties and the two 
 children system, the women especially who have not been
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 31 
 
 able to express themselves adequately for centuries and whose 
 lot is growing harder and harder in our civilization, suffer 
 from a marked need of love. If you find a woman de- 
 pressed and out of sorts with herself and weeping, who can- 
 not tell you what is ailing her, you may safely conclude that 
 she is craving for love; give her the necessary love outlet 
 through happy marriage and children, and she will have no 
 more crying spells. It is for this reason that hysteria has 
 always been characterized by these crying spells, but no one 
 ever made any effort to discover this underlying cause. A 
 mother may suddenly lose her only child whom she loves 
 deeply. If she is a sensitive woman who receives no love 
 from her husband she will often develop a neurosis, for now 
 that the child has gone out of her life, she has been cut off 
 from her only love outlet. There is nothing degenerate in 
 this ; it is no more degenerate than to have pneumonia, or 
 tuberculosis, or a broken leg. 
 
 Some time ago a young woman consulted me, because, as 
 she said, she was extremely nervous ; she declared that she 
 suffered from insomnia, that her appetite was poor, and that 
 she entertained peculiar thoughts. When asked what she 
 meant by peculiar thoughts, she replied that she simply 
 could not stomach her mother who was constantly "getting 
 in her way." Whenever, for instance, she wished to do 
 something, however trifling, her mother stood in the way. 
 There was nothing of love or sex as we commonly under- 
 stand these terms, so that to one who is not accustomed to 
 our viewpoint, it would have shown nothing wrong sexually. 
 But as there is a very vital and intimate relation between 
 child and parent, there was really a disturbance in the love- 
 life of this young woman. So you see how different our 
 conception of sex is from that ordinarily held. 
 
 Some women will sometimes say to me with manifest 
 feeling: "Now, doctor, you don't have to ask me about love
 
 32 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 or sex, for I never experienced such a thing in my life, and 
 what is more, I never bother with such trifles." But let us 
 remember that love is the very mainspring and breath of life, 
 the vis vitalis, as it were. Indeed, everything in life may be 
 reduced to two fundamental instincts : hunger and love ; they 
 are the supreme rulers of the world, as Schiller has put it: 
 
 "Einstweilen, bis den Bau der Welt, 
 Philosophic zusammen halt 
 Erhalt sie das Getriibe 
 Durch Hunger und durch Liebe." 
 
 From a purely biological standpoint, the impulse of hunger 
 or self-preservation has gradually lost its importance with 
 the advance of civilization ; it has, however, not entirely been 
 eliminated. We still have to work for the necessities of life, 
 but it is no longer that bitter and dangerous struggle of 
 primitive times when a man was compelled to forage and 
 risk his life. To-day no one need really starve from hunger ; 
 and what is more, he is not permitted to do so, even if he 
 should want to. How zealously do the authorities work to 
 break a hunger-strike! I myself have fed insane persons 
 through the nose for as long as two and three years until they 
 consented to take nourishment in the normal way. But the 
 satisfaction of the sex cravings has become, as we have said, 
 a more and more distressing problem with the advance of 
 civilization. We find that in the whole range of the animal 
 kingdom nature has made definite provisions for sex which 
 begins to manifest itself at puberty. But in a state of civil- 
 ization the human being cannot live as the animal, and instead 
 of exercising his biological functions as destined by nature, is 
 forced by society to defer them to a later period of his ex- 
 istence. It means, of course, a tremendous amount of con- 
 trol and effort on the part of the individual ; and it may be 
 of interest for you to know that there is not a young man 
 or woman with whom I have come into intimate touch who
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 33 
 
 has not had trying and terrible struggles in thus repressing 
 the sexual feelings. 
 
 I would have you note here that our conception of sex 
 applies also to children. This may sound a bit startling to 
 you, so let me proceed at once to illustrate what I mean with 
 one or two examples: A child of about three and a half 
 years old absolutely refuses to do whatever it is bidden; it 
 has been an angelic little creature, and suddenly a complete 
 transformation occurs. It cries, resists every effort to make 
 it do anything and is absolutely unmanageable; the doctor 
 has been called in, but medicines have proved ineffective. 
 Here is the history of the case: It was the youngest of a 
 few children in the home ; the parents have separated ; it was 
 found that the mother carried on an amour with a certain 
 man and she naturally had to leave the house; the children 
 were placed in charge of a very fine governess. The mother 
 was a woman of an emotional type and very much attached to 
 her children. The governess was a typical English lady, cold 
 and strict with the children. The older children who were all 
 past the fifth year managed to get along quite well; if they 
 resented anything at all, they registered their protests in the 
 open and the affair was over. But this youngest child at 
 once began to cry and behave in the strange fashion I have 
 described. The symptoms surprised me; it behaved like a 
 grown-up person suffering from dementia praecox. Of 
 course, I decided at once upon the nature of the cure. The 
 child's love-life was disturbed; it was accustomed to re- 
 ceive love from its mother, and suddenly a new environment 
 interfered; this cold-blooded woman came into its life, who 
 looked at everything objectively, impersonally ; the child was 
 pining for the mother's affection. It took me quite a little 
 while before I had matters so arranged that the mother 
 could see the child every other day. It soon recovered and
 
 34 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 has been well ever since. We say there was a disturbance in 
 the sexual or love-life of the child. 
 
 Or consider the case of another child of four years who 
 was perfectly well until the parents decided to send away 
 the French governess. The little girl grew very depressed, 
 was bitterly incensed at her mother and remarked to her 
 father: "If mademoiselle will be sent away, I'll die herself." 
 She had not yet learned to say "myself." The father, who 
 was a physician, was very much alarmed ; he came to me and 
 declared quite frankly that he did not know what to do. I 
 assured him that I had no doubt at all that if the child had 
 been given enough attention by the mother, she would not 
 behave in that way; that now that it was decided to send 
 away the governess, upon whom she was depending for her 
 love, she felt that she would be left all alone. Indeed, how 
 would an adult feel, if he were separated from the one 
 person whom he loves? The doctor assured me that that 
 was exactly the situation; that he always felt that his wife 
 neglected the little girl. I advised him to see that his wife 
 take her place as mother to the child, play with her, and give 
 her of her affection, and then dismiss the governess. Thus 
 the problem was solved : the little girl received a normal love 
 outlet. 
 
 We must remember, however, that the sexual life of the 
 child is different from that of the adult. The sex-life of the 
 former consists of what we generally think of as love; it 
 likes to be petted and fondled and humored, it likes to re- 
 ceive attention and have its way in its own little world. 
 Later on, when it grows into manhood or womanhood, there 
 will be other manifestations, which we do not find, of course, 
 in childhood. Yet these first and early emotional reactions 
 are just as much a part of its sex-life as the later ones. 
 Whenever we find, then, an emotional disturbance, let us not 
 fail to examine the parents' behavior, if it is present in a
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 35 
 
 child; if in an adult, let us remember the words of Dumas 
 pere: "cherchez la femme." 
 
 In speaking about the neurotic, we said that the symptom 
 represents some painful emotional experience in the past 
 which he tried to crowd out of consciousness, to 
 forget. Thus it is in a very real sense, an emo- symptom 
 tional outlet, and that is why patients intrinsi- outlet 
 cally, though unconsciously, are loathe to give 
 it up; there is, as we have said, a morbid gain. It some- 
 times happens that there can be no normal, wholesome outlet 
 for some loss or misfortune, from the very nature of things, 
 we might say. Take, for instance, the case of a woman who 
 has lost her husband, and has no children, no relatives, no 
 financial resources. She is also in no condition, by virtue of 
 age and other factors, to think that she can go into the world 
 and find some normal outlet, such as marriage. She be- 
 comes hysterical and we find her in a hospital. She is in- 
 telligent and sensible and when you begin to discuss her 
 case with her, she will presently tell you that she really does 
 not know what she can or will do when she leaves the 
 hospital. When you assure her that you will cure her, she 
 begins to worry about the awful void ahead of her: for in- 
 deed, she has nothing to live for. In other words, the doctor 
 who attempts to cure her, is face to face with a herculean 
 task. We had, of course, an altogether different situation 
 in the case of that young woman who had that pain in her 
 arm. One could see at once that she could and ought to be 
 cured ; there was everything in her favor ; her complaining 
 about the pain and her consulting doctors was really a sub- 
 stitute, I might say, for the love for which she was ardently 
 craving; all that she had to do was to learn to face reality. 
 In proportion, then, as a normal outlet is lacking, the patient 
 will continue to hold on to the symptom more and more
 
 36 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 firmly. Thus, given two young people who are equally sick, 
 if one derives a greater morbid gain from the neurosis than 
 the other, he will remain sick much longer than the other to 
 whom fortune has not been so "kind." The time required to 
 cure a patient is directly proportional, we might say, to the 
 degree in which he is morbidly benefited by his neurosis. 
 
 In the same way there are persons who simulate insanity ; 
 it is in itself an outlet, a sort of morbid gain. In the olden 
 times when an individual dissembled madness, he was 
 brutally punished for it; the doctor would presumably cure 
 him by the very simple device of turning a hose of cold water 
 on him. If he survived the treatment, he was fired out of 
 the hospital with very little ceremony. But let us not 
 forget that even those cases who simulate are abnormal ; no 
 normal persons will resort to such an outlet. An individual 
 who acts in this fashion is sick and we should treat him as 
 such. To-day we impress upon him that we know he is 
 feigning, but we do not treat him with brutality. The com- 
 missioner of correction asked me some time ago to examine 
 a man of this type who was accused of a certain crime. 
 There was a friend of mine with me who is not a physician 
 and I told him that the case was a puzzle to medical men. 
 When I examined this fellow he played crazy and did all 
 sorts of queer things. I gave him a thorough examination 
 in the presence of my friend whom I addressed as doctor. 
 I said : "Doctor, it is the rarest case I have ever seen," and 
 I mentioned some medical name. "I am quite sure that in 
 this case there is such and such a condition ; just to cor- 
 roborate the diagnosis, I'll wager that if I take the man's arm 
 and stretch it out, he will hold it in that position indefinitely." 
 Before I had the opportunity to do that, he did it himself; 
 the poor fellow tried very hard to feign various conditions. 
 I told him that there was to be no prevarication and he soon 
 confessed that he was deceiving and begged me to help him.
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 37 
 
 I made it very clear to him that I would help him on the con- 
 dition that he be straightforward and honest. No one can 
 feign insanity. When a person tells the doctor he has 
 pneumonia, it may be proveryby just listening to the chest. 
 Likewise in insanity, there is nothing that has not been re- 
 duced to a certain definite form and condition. When a 
 person is really insane, his insanity is manifest. I have 
 never found any one who has succeeded in counterfeiting it, 
 and I have seen malingerers here and abroad. They may 
 succeed in bamboozling some doctors who do not know. 
 You will occasionally read in the newspapers that some men 
 have simulated insanity and then declare that they are not at 
 all insane, but I know for a fact that a real insane person 
 would be the last one to plead he is insane. Let us bear in 
 mind that any individual who tries to pretend insanity or 
 hysteria, no matter in what difficult straits he find himself, 
 is abnormal, for no normal person would resort to such an 
 outlet. 
 
 We see this mechanism very often in a less pronounced 
 form. A patient informed me once that when she was 
 young she found that she was treated well when sick, and so 
 whenever she did not wish to go to school, she would say that 
 she had a headache. That was her way of solving the prob- 
 lem. Now she really has those headaches and is unable to 
 do important work that she even likes, though it is note- 
 worthy that the headaches are far more severe when she has 
 to attend to something she dislikes. 
 
 What we said about the neurosis applies also to the psy- 
 chosis. Like the neurotic symptom, the insane condition 
 serves as an emotional outlet, it enables the patient to realize 
 his wish. Some individuals upon experiencing some heavy 
 shock or misfortune, cannot resign themselves to the actual 
 reality. The problem is such a mooted and difficult one 
 that in order to solve it at all they have to tear themselves
 
 3 8 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 away from reality completely. When they become insane, 
 the wish that they desire to realize is then fulfilled in their in- 
 sane condition. Here, too, we see that there is an attempt at 
 adjustment, there is a morbid gain. Let me give you an 
 example : 
 
 A few years ago there was much discussion in New 
 York City on the need for laborers up the state for the 
 harvest. Many tailors and people in similar vocation were 
 then out of employment; one of these men who was quite 
 poor was very glad to take advantage of the opportunity, 
 particularly since he heard he would earn from three to 
 four dollars a day and free board besides. When he was 
 put to work as a farmer, however, it was found that he was 
 not at all fitted or strong enough for the work. The result 
 was that he was made a fool of by the farmer and his sons. 
 He became quite sullen and morose and when once, upon 
 provocation, he dared to retort, they gave him a sound 
 thrashing and fired him. What was more, they would not 
 pay him what was due him. He appealed for redress in 
 the local court of justice, but everybody turned a deaf ear 
 on him. He was about one hundred and sixty miles away 
 from the city, and as he could not scrape up any money, he 
 was compelled to walk home. He reached the city, fagged 
 out and starved, crying for revenge. He consulted a lawyer 
 who asked him for ten dollars as a retainer : the poor fellow 
 did not have a cent. He was at a loss : wherever he turned 
 he could receive no justice. Burning for redress, he would 
 perpetually talk about it to his wife; he could not shake it 
 off from his mind. One day he became fearfully excited, 
 he shouted, kicked at the bedsteads, tore the pillows, heaping 
 all the while all manner of abuse on the farmer. The wife 
 was alarmed and sent for an ambulance ; he was taken to the 
 Bellevue hospital, where I saw him. He hallucinated and 
 was continually raging against the farmer, who he imagined
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 39 
 
 was right there before him. He soon quieted down and 
 after talking with him for a while I grasped immediately 
 the true nature of his condition: the poor man behaved in 
 that strange fashion, for he had no other way of giving vent 
 to his feelings. 
 
 I might tell you right here the meaning of some of the 
 terms I am using. By hallucinations, I mean false percep- 
 tions, that is, apparent perceptions without corresponding 
 external objects. If a person sees things that do not exist 
 at the time, he is suffering from hallucinations of sight; 
 if he hears voices when nobody is talking to him, he suffers 
 from hallucinations of hearing; if he mistakenly feels that 
 an animal, for instance, is crawling in his stomach, he has 
 a sensory hallucination. Thus all the senses can produce 
 hallucinations. An illusion, on the other hand, is just a 
 perverted sensation, there is a corresponding external object 
 but it is falsely interpreted. When a person, for instance, 
 suffering from alcoholic insanity, declares that there are 
 snakes crawling over a carpet, he is simply misinterpreting 
 the figures and designs there ; he calls them snakes because 
 of certain poisons in the nerves of the retina. Thus, too, an 
 individual who hears some one talk and insists that the latter 
 is talking about him, whereas he really is not, is suffering 
 from an illusion. On the other hand, a delusion is a false 
 idea which is absolutely fixed and from which you cannot 
 reason the patient away. When a man informs you that 
 he is the emperor of China and you know that he is an 
 ordinary New York tailor, then he has a delusion of 
 grandeur ; or if a man tells you he is the real pope and his 
 enemies have substituted a sham pope in his place, when you 
 know that he is perhaps a hod carrier, he has delusions of 
 grandeur and persecution. 
 
 The psychosis, then, being a form of abnormal adjustment 
 in itself, an abnormal attempt at a solution of some inner
 
 40 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 problem, the expressions of the insane cannot be meaning- 
 less; they have significance and value in terms of the 
 essential psychic conflicts. Before Freud came on the scene, 
 no attention was paid to the utterances of the insane. We 
 know now that their hallucinations and delusions are not 
 at all meaningless or irrational, that they have their raison 
 d'etre. In no light sense, may we say that there is method 
 in madness. Take, for instance, the insane woman who appar- 
 ently falls in love with every doctor. Upon examination, you 
 will find that she had an unhappy love affair and she identifies 
 some other man with her lover who had forsaken her. In 
 other words, in order to checkmate nature, as one might say, 
 she tears herself away from reality. It is in itself an abnor- 
 mal adjustment. When we are overtaken by some misfor- 
 tune, we all seek refuge in different ways; some throw 
 themselves into scientific or literary work, others into social 
 activity or business. Thus in time sorrow loses its keen edge. 
 Some people, however, cannot do this ; they represent a 
 special type of sensitive material. More than 50 per cent 
 of all the patients in insane asylums are of this type. They 
 are men and women who could not learn to accept the facts, 
 who could not "forget." Instead, they tore themselves away 
 from reality altogether, and realized their wish in their own 
 way, thus solving the problem. 
 
 It has been pointed out that the symptom is the resultant 
 
 of two psychic streams both striving for expression, one, the 
 
 Tiie foreconscious, subjecting the activity of the 
 
 Sy ^ p l om other, the unconscious, to a sort of critique 
 as Com- ' ' ^ 
 
 promise which results in an exclusion from consciousness. 
 The basic meaning of the symptom, no matter what the 
 symptom may be, whether paralysis, aphonia, or delirium, 
 is absolutely unknown to the person; its mechanisms are 
 entirely incomprehensible to the average observer. I can
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 41 
 
 make this clear to you by giving you a complete example. 
 A woman of about thirty-five is unhappily married. Her 
 husband treats her most brutally and she detests him; she 
 would leave him but she loves her children deeply, and feels 
 that such a move on her part would be quite detrimental 
 to their good name and welfare. In her distress, she turns 
 to a certain friend of her husband, who sympathizes with 
 her and is very eager to do all he can to help her out of 
 her difficulties. In the course of time they fall in love. 
 He is a married man and that, of course, complicates the 
 situation even more. He assures her that she is perfectly 
 justified in behaving as she does, for her husband's brutal 
 treatment is without doubt unjust and reprehensible. That, 
 of course, carries much weight with her, because she met 
 this man originally through her husband who was a former 
 classmate of his. They begin to think seriously of securing 
 divorces and marrying, but here again, the man cannot 
 resign himself to the idea of leaving his children. This is 
 quite characteristic of people of this type; they can never 
 gather sufficient strength to carry out what they wish to do, 
 they are so much under the influence of their early bringing- 
 up. Be that as it may, they played with the idea for years. 
 She used to reproach herself for her conduct, for at bottom 
 she was really quite religious and regarded matrimony with 
 a deep sense of sacredness. In time, the man suggested 
 sexual relations, to which she objected quite strenuously. 
 
 One day he made an appointment with her to meet her at 
 a certain place: she knew very definitely just what the nature 
 of the rendezvous would be. However, she apparently de- 
 cided to go, left her home, and walked over to the car which 
 passed in front of her house. As she was waiting for it, 
 she suddenly felt a pain in her heart, she became flushed, her 
 heart began to palpitate, and she feared that she would faint. 
 An officer assisted her home and she was confined to bed.
 
 42 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 At first the doctor thought she had heart trouble, but after 
 a few days she was able tc leave the bed and it was found 
 that there was really nothing wrong with her heart. She 
 presently went out to shop and the moment she found herself 
 in the street she began to fear that she would have another 
 such attack ; she returned home and took her little girl with 
 her, so that she might not be alone in case something serious 
 should happen to her. The family gradually began to realize 
 that she was afraid to go out alone. Finally she came to 
 see me. 
 
 What is the deeper significance of this situation? We 
 see here two opposite psychic streams in conflict. From a 
 biological viewpoint, the woman was entitled to her share 
 of love and affection; there was the primitive emotion which 
 a woman of this type, and for that matter every woman, 
 would naturally experience when confronted with a situation 
 of this character; here on one side was her husband who 
 maltreated her and on the other, a man who sympathized 
 with her, loved her and was ready to help her in every way. 
 But on the other hand, there is the thought of religion, our 
 early training and society: we are brought up to feel that 
 such an emotion is immoral, that only legitimate love is 
 right. And so, as you see, there was a constant struggle ; she 
 felt that had she kept the rendezvous, she would have com- 
 mitted adultery, she would have sinned, and so unconsciously 
 she decided not to go. When I inquired what she feared, 
 when she went out into the street, she replied that she was 
 in terror of falling. You see what she really had in mind 
 was a moral falling. Her fear of falling and perhaps of 
 being run over and killed was a symbolic representation of 
 her fear of committing sin. Thus, in a sense, she solved the 
 problem. There was a compromise effected by the two 
 streams in the form of the symptom. We designate a 
 nervous condition of this type as an "anxiety hysteria." It
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 43 
 
 is a psychoneurotic disturbance which manifests itself pre- 
 dominantly through fear or anxiety. 1 
 
 There are, of course, many forms of nervous disturbances, 
 into which we cannot enter here. There is one type about 
 which I may say a few words right now, because it is so 
 commonly referred to. It manifests itself in all kinds of 
 obsessions, doubts and fears, and is known as a "compulsion 
 neurosis," that is, a neurosis which is characterized through- 
 out by a marked compulsiveness in thought and act. A 
 patient suffering of such a condition may go to bed, for 
 instance, then pause and wonder whether she locked the door, 
 get up, assure herself that she did, and return to bed. A 
 minute later it occurs to her that in locking it she may have 
 perhaps unlocked it, and so she cannot rest until she makes 
 sure. She may continue to go through this little performance 
 perhaps one or two dozen times through the night. We call 
 it doubting mania, "folies de doat." Some sufferers of this 
 type have a tendency to reason perpetually, ad nauseam. A 
 person will begin to reason about some problem that he 
 himself knows is absolutely absurd, but he cannot refrain 
 from doing so. A man, for instance, who is not at all in- 
 terested in socialism will suddenly begin to think of it; no 
 matter where and when he meets a person he will be won- 
 dering whether that person is a socialist; he will bombard 
 people with the most absurd questions on the subject. An- 
 other man who is not a bit interested in hypnotism will 
 constantly ask questions about it; he consults all doctors 
 who have the reputation of being specialists on the subject 
 and finds out what they think on this or that phase of it. 
 He feels that it is absolutely important that he should know 
 all about it. 
 
 The case of the woman I have just described is, as you 
 see, a nervous disturbance essentially growing out of the 
 
 1 This particular form of fear is known as "agoraphobia."
 
 44 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 conflict between what she considered right and wrong, moral 
 and immoral. It is a neurosis, and we distinguish it from a 
 psychosis in that the latter is a mental disturbance in which 
 the individual, unlike the neurotic, detaches himself com- 
 pletely from reality and behaves as if he does not belong 
 there at all. To illustrate : A young lady of about twenty- 
 nine is taken to me by her brother, who is a physician. He 
 informs me that she has been acting strangely for the last 
 four weeks, and he fears that she is a little out of her mind. 
 She insists that all the girls in the shop where she is em- 
 ployed talked disparagingly about her; she cries, does not 
 wish to leave the house, and wants to move out of the 
 neighborhood because all the neighbors are in a conspiracy 
 against her. As a result, she is in a state of marked de- 
 pression. Her brother is right : of course there is something 
 wrong with an individual who deems himself so important 
 and popular as to have people everywhere talk about him. 
 After insisting upon her to tell me what the world had to 
 say about her, she finally said : "Everybody keeps on saying 
 that I am a bad girl, that I have committed a lot of sex 
 crimes." On further examination I learned the following: 
 A young man began to call on her of late ; he has been paying 
 her quite a little attention. Some time passed, she was 
 feeling well apparently, when she got a toothache. (It is 
 significant that the young man was a dentist.) She had the 
 tooth extracted and as gas had been administered, she was a 
 little nervous and delirious after the operation. Since then 
 she had entertained those ideas. She went on to assure me 
 that the condition is entirely due to the fact that those girls 
 are mean and jealous ; that they make these slanderous re- 
 marks about her person because they are anxious to estrange 
 the young man from her. Her brother then told me that 
 he felt quite convinced that the main cause for her nervous- 
 ness is the fact that the young man upon whom she had
 
 SYMPTOM: ITS NATURE AND FUNCTION 45 
 
 built so many hopes, has not shown himself enough attentive 
 of late ; that in fine, he stopped calling on her. 
 
 The sexual import of the situation is quite patent. The 
 girl was well brought up, quiet and well-behaved, and re- 
 spectable in every way. Why then should she have such 
 delusions, you will ask ; they would seem to be incompatible 
 with her own nature. Now there is a mechanism which we 
 call "projection," by virtue of which we throw out to the 
 outside world feelings and emotions which we have repressed. 
 We say other people are saying or doing what we have re- 
 pressed, what indeed, we ourselves once would have liked to 
 say or do. Such delusions are called delusions of reference, 
 Besiihungswahn, in German. We mean by this that a per- 
 son will interpret everything that is being said by people in 
 his environment as referring to himself. The deeper mean- 
 ing of the situation, then, lay just in this, that when the man 
 stopped calling on her, everybody in her home began to 
 criticize and blame her. Her mother and brother declared 
 that she was by no means bad-looking, that on the other 
 hand, she was quite attractive, intelligent and sensible, that 
 she had friends, but that her great drawback was that she 
 was too "good." She had native gifts, but of what use are 
 they, if one does not put them to the best use? That was 
 their mode of reasoning. In other words, they hardly 
 troubled to disguise the fact that what she had to learn yet 
 was to be a trifle bad. Apropos of this, I might say that 
 this is one of those fanciful emotions that practically all 
 moral women sometimes secretly desire to taste. We have 
 named it the "being naughty motive," the "prostitution 
 complex." So many respectable women have very often told 
 me that they do wish they could have the experience of 
 being a prostitute for an hour so that they might know Just 
 what it means. They are shocked by the very thought, but 
 it is pleasing and thrilling none the less. This woman per-
 
 46 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 haps never thought of it, but when it was driven home to 
 her that she lost this man simply because she kept him at 
 such a distance, because she adhered too strictly to the little 
 proprieties and conventions of social life, she fully realized 
 its significance and straightway the repressed thought comes 
 to the surface and her unconscious wish is realized: she is 
 really immoral and for that reason the young man left her. 
 Thus, she who is at bottom an ethical individual must per- 
 force come to the conclusion that the young man repulses 
 her because she is bad, and immoral, and not because she is 
 too good and moral. 
 
 The underlying significance of all these conditions, the 
 nature of all these mechanisms, have not been understood, 
 as I have said, before Freud ; nowadays we can always find 
 the reason of these phenomena and in this way cure most of 
 the patients. By this, of course, I do not mean to imply that 
 psychoanalysis is the panacea in all nervous and mental 
 diseases, that every and any disease is amenable to the 
 psychoanalytic therapy. I wish to say, on the contrary, that 
 this treatment, like every other, has its marked limitations. 
 It is applicable to a limited number of diseases only; and 
 furthermore, the person who is treated by this method must 
 be an individual of the higher type, mentally, morally, and 
 in every other way. Every one can be psychoanalyzed, but 
 analyzing and curing a patient are two entirely different 
 matters ; and the wise physician will not attempt to analyze 
 one whom he does not think he can cure. There is no doubt, 
 however, that psychoanalysis can help us to understand prob- 
 lems in various fields of vital human interest that were 
 formerly altogether inscrutable to us. Furthermore, it 
 enables us to see very clearly the forces that tend to upset 
 and unbalance the individual, and thus is of invaluable 
 service as prophylaxis.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 
 
 The main basis of Freud's psychology is that there is 
 nothing accidental or arbitrary in the psychic life, that every- 
 thing has reason and meaning. It matters not how complex 
 or simple the condition may be, it has significance, and this 
 significance may be discovered through analysis. There is 
 thus a tremendous number of mistakes in speech and thought 
 manifestations which we commonly make, that getting 
 reveal, in a surprising way, the individual's real festive 
 thoughts and motives. They are, as we say, *5|^ Ia " 
 symbolic expressions or psychopathological actions, incorrect 
 psychic activities which the individual daily performs and of 
 which he is not aware at the time. They have not been 
 hitherto investigated, I mean psychologically, because they 
 were regarded as essentially organic disturbances. I am re- 
 ferring to such faulty actions as lapses of memory, lapses of 
 talking, mistakes in writing, dreams in the normal individual, 
 and convulsions, deliria, visions, and obsessive acts in neu- 
 rotics and psychotics. The psychologist has paid little atten- 
 tion to these phenomena because they presumably belonged 
 to pathology, and the physician, to whom they were baffling 
 and recondite to the last degree, passed them by, as if they 
 did not at all exist. Freud in working with his patients 
 began to pay attention to them because he found, as I have 
 already said, that they all had a certain import and genetic 
 basis. He thus developed in time what we may call a 
 symbolic language. If you understand this language, you 
 
 47
 
 48 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 will then realize how it manifests itself practically all the time 
 in our daily lives. Understand this symbolism and how full 
 of meaning will be your friend's forgetting to do or say 
 something! Sometimes a patient will be startled by what 
 seems to him nothing short of psychic powers on the part 
 of the psychoanalyst. I asked a woman to-day whether she 
 has had a particular dream during her life, and she replied : 
 "Oh, yes, I usually dream of mountains and water and 
 waves and I delight in them greatly; but then, I have the 
 same dreams when I am half awake and I despise them." 
 My next question was : "Tell me, up to what age did you 
 wet the bed ?" and quite embarrassed she answered : "Until 
 I was quite old." She wondered and then asked me how I 
 knew it. This type of dream is quite characteristic of people 
 who wet the bed; and there was really nothing remarkable 
 in my arriving at the conclusion. Everything that a person 
 does, the way he dresses or walks, his bearing and demeanor, 
 his manner of talking, all have a definite meaning. I do 
 not know whether you are aware of the fact that we are 
 taught in medicine to observe carefully these seemingly trivial 
 things. Take a patient, for instance, who may have had 
 some brain disturbance, let us say a slight hemorrhage, but 
 whose history is so vague that we cannot tell whether he did 
 or not. In such a case we may very often make a diagnosis 
 by examining the way his shoe is worn out and thus deter- 
 mine definitely whether or not he had some brain disturbance. 
 The result of the slightest cerebral hemorrhage shows its 
 effects in the gait ; the patient wears off a little of the right 
 or left of his shoe, and that is enough to give you a clue to 
 his condition. If it has been a slight attack, it will evade 
 the observation of the average observer but the experienced 
 physician can detect it in the way he drags one of his limbs. 
 We must have a sharp eye for these little things about a 
 person, particularly in the Insane Asylum. Very few insane
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 49 
 
 people tell us what we want them to, and it remains for the 
 physician to make the diagnosis at once, for he has the 
 patient's relatives forever on his heels, anxious to learn of 
 what disease the patient suffers and how long it will be 
 before he gets well and is able to come home. Sometimes, 
 too, in their great eagerness and solicitude, they will ask you 
 all that, before you have even had the opportunity to speak 
 to the patient. And then, a great many of the insane do not 
 talk and yet the doctor must make the diagnosis and give 
 an intelligent answer. "But," you ask, "how can a diagnosis 
 be made, if the patient does not talk?" But that is just the 
 point : to an experienced physician his inability to speak may 
 be due to some physical cause, such as aphasia, or perhaps 
 to some mental retardation. The patient may move his lips, 
 taking perhaps a half hour in his efforts to answer; you can 
 see very clearly without knowing anything about lip reading, 
 that he is trying hard to talk but cannot ; he is suffering from 
 mental retardation. Then, too, other patients actually refuse 
 to talk, in which case of course the diagnosis must necessarily 
 be different. We can tell at once that the patient who suffers 
 of this mental retardation and has nothing organically wrong 
 with him will recover ; we can discuss his case with the same 
 degree of definiteness as we can some physical condition. If 
 the disturbance is organic, the prognosis can be made ac- 
 cordingly. In short, we must learn to observe and under- 
 stand the patient. 
 
 In thus inquiring into the significance of psychopathologi- 
 cal actions, Professor Freud made a study of forgetting. 
 People generally regard forgetting as a common occurrence 
 and I hear a good deal about it from patients, who very often 
 inform me that they are very nervous and that they are 
 forgetting all the time. When I sometimes ask the person 
 to give me an example, he stops and thinks for a long time 
 and then declares that last week he had to do such and such
 
 50 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 a thing at such and such a place, but forgot. Now imagine 
 a person who is forgetful, remembering what happened last 
 week ! In the final analysis there is but one kind of forget - 
 fulness, organic forgetfulness. If one forgets in any real 
 sense of the word he has some organic brain trouble which 
 can be diagnosed by a physician or neurologist in about ten 
 minutes. If there is no organic condition, his so-called 
 forgetting may be ultimately reduced to two causes : first, 
 that he really did not wish to remember what he claims he 
 "forgot"; secondly, that he either never knew it or that he 
 never considered it important enough to know. Eliminating 
 the second factor, we find when we ask ourselves why we 
 have forgotten to do something, that we did not wish to do 
 it, that there was something in that particular act that was 
 unpleasant or disagreeable. Think for a moment about the 
 letter that you forgot to mail ; it is probably a letter some 
 one has asked you to mail and you did not have enough 
 courage to refuse ; or it may perhaps contain a check with 
 which, though perfectly honest, you hated to part. Shall 
 I assure you that in nine cases out of ten it does not contain 
 a bill ? We never forget anything that we feel is important. 
 I dare say, you will not carry a love letter in your pocket 
 for days and forget to mail it. Some of you, I am sure, will 
 hasten to remind me that when you were in college you knew 
 one hundred trigonometrical formulas and that now, strange 
 to say, you do not know one. Eut did you ever really wish 
 to know them? You had to know them and just as soon as 
 the examination was over you did not care to know them 
 any longer. There is an important point here for pedagogs, 
 it seems to me. What we really like we do not have to 
 memorize. If you desire a child to remember some subject 
 matter make it so vitally interesting that he will be very glad 
 and anxious to remember it. It is a platitude to say that 
 anatomy is a dry subject and yet I once had an instructor who
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 51 
 
 taught it in such an absorbing, fascinating way that students 
 came to his courses quite voluntarily. When one likes and 
 enjoys the subject he teaches, he can transfer his interest 
 in it to others. In psychic studies, the axiom is: like 
 emotions beget like emotions. When you "forget" anything, 
 then, it is either because you have never known it, and so 
 there is really no reason why you should know it ; or, if you 
 had known it well and now find that you cannot recall it, 
 because it is essentially connected, directly or indirectly, with 
 something disagreeable and painful. The mind is always 
 protecting us from pain by pushing whatever is disagreeable 
 and unpleasant into the unconscious. 
 
 Psychoanalysis reveals that the various psychopathological 
 actions are readily explainable on a psychological basis. 
 Whatever we say or do must have a reason and can usually 
 be explained without resorting to such superficial considera- 
 tions as "absent-mindedness" or the like. The Scottish 
 professor, who, on a momentous occasion, removed his 
 every-day clothes and instead of dressing for dinner went 
 to bed, cannot be excused on the ground of "absent-minded- 
 ness." We must assume that he really preferred to go to 
 bed than to the dinner, for any one who looks forward to a 
 dinner of some importance will not forget and go to bed. It 
 is such "little" things that disclose the individual's real motives 
 and give us the key to the more complicated mental activities. 
 There is a physical reason for a person who has an organic 
 brain disturbance to forget what he has once well known, 
 but if he shows no such disturbance there can be no other 
 than a psychological reason ,for his lapse of memory. 
 
 When I was an interne in the Clinic of Psychiatry at 
 Zurich, I had an interesting experience in forgetting a name 
 which I may say finally converted me to Freud's teachings. 
 At that time, I was not fully convinced of his theories, and
 
 52 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 my attitude was skeptical though by no means unsympathetic. 
 I approached the whole subject in the spirit of an investigator 
 A and student who made every effort to discover 
 
 %y&cai an d understand all the data before passing final 
 of judgment on his psychology. Spurred on by 
 
 setting 1 Professor Bleuler, all the physicians in the hos- 
 
 pital were firm and ardent workers with the new theories. 
 In fact, we were in the only hospital or clinic where the 
 Freudian principles were applied in the study and treatment 
 of patients. Those were the pioneer days of Freud among 
 psychiatrists, and we observed and studied and noted what- 
 ever was done or said about us with unfailing patience and 
 untiring interest and zeal. We made no scruples, for 
 instance, of asking a man at table why he did not use his 
 spoon in the proper way, or why he did such and such a thing 
 in such and such a manner. It was impossible for one to 
 show any degree of hesitation or make some abrupt pause 
 in speaking without being at once called to account. We had 
 to keep ourselves well in hand, ever ready and alert, for there 
 was no telling when and where there would be a new attack. 
 We had to explain why we whistled or hummed some par- 
 ticular tune or why we made some slip in talking or some 
 mistake in writing. But we were glad to do this if for no 
 other reason than to learn to face the truth. 
 
 One afternoon when I was off duty I was reading about 
 a certain case which recalled to my mind a similar one I had 
 when I was in a hospital here in New York. I am in the habit 
 of making marginal notes and so I took up my pencil to write 
 down the case, but when I came to note the name of the 
 patient whom I had known for a number of months and in 
 whom I had taken an unusual amount of interest, I found 
 that I could not recall it. I tried very hard to bring it back 
 to my mind, but without success. It was strange and 
 puzzling; but as I knew definitely whom I meant I finished
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 53 
 
 the note. Now according to Freud, I thought at once to 
 myself, the name must be connected with something painful 
 and unpleasant. I decided right there and then to find it by 
 the Freudian method. As I have already told you, it con- 
 sists essentially of freely or spontaneously associating until 
 finally the disagreeable element is brought to the surface. It 
 was my Sunday afternoon off and I had been looking for- 
 ward to it with no little eagerness. The weather was clear 
 and bracing and I was very anxious to be out in the open ; 
 besides I had an appointment in the town which I did not 
 like to break. But I was so eager to utilize every oppor- 
 tunity to test the Freudian theory, that I at once took down 
 one of those long yellow pads we used to use and began to 
 write down my associations. 
 
 Now the patient whose name I could not recall was the 
 same man who some years ago attempted to set fire to the 
 St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York; he gathered together 
 some odds and ends before the entrance of the church and 
 set fire to it. He was of course arrested, brought to the 
 psychopathic pavilion in Bellevue and later to the State 
 Hospital where he became my patient. I diagnosed him as 
 a psychic epileptic. I decided that he suffered from a form 
 of epilepsy which does not manifest itself in fits, as the 
 general cases do, but rather in peculiar psychic actions which 
 may last for a few minutes or hours or perhaps for weeks, 
 months or years. Nobody agreed with me in the diagnosis ; 
 my senior doctor held that the patient suffered from de- 
 mentia praecox. I was firmly convinced, however, that my 
 patient was what I designated him, for there are a great many 
 epileptics who, instead of having the physical paroxysms 
 which are usually associated with epilepsy, have what we 
 call psychic equivalents, by virtue of which they go through 
 all manner of complicated psychic experiences. They become 
 dazed and unconscious and lose track of their old self; they
 
 54 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 are then virtually different personalities and they may com- 
 mit all sorts of crimes in their new person. I have actually 
 known of murders committed and houses burned by people 
 of this type. One man was reported to have killed his 
 entire family, father, mother and six brothers in a fit of 
 this kind; and when he came to himself again he was not 
 at all aware of the horrors that he had perpetrated. 
 
 Within a week or so the patient recovered and was entirely 
 normal, thus corroborating my diagnosis in every respect. 
 The patient told us that this was his fifth attack and that 
 in some of his previous ones he had burned a railroad station, 
 a church and several barns. He would run away from 
 home, his wife and children, and wander off, scot-free, when 
 one of these fits came upon him. He was an editor of a 
 journal and newspaper in Canada, a man of considerable 
 intelligence and refinement. On one of his attacks during 
 the Boer war, he ran away from Canada and came to Lon- 
 don, where, seeing calls for volunteers, he enlisted and was 
 sent to South Africa. He fought bravely and was promoted 
 to sergeant in a few weeks. When he came to himself, he 
 was quite surprised to find himself a soldier and did not 
 have the least idea how he got to South Africa. Previous 
 experience told him, however, what his condition meant and 
 upon reporting it to the physicians, he was honorably dis- 
 charged. He sent a cable to his wife and returned home. 
 He gave us various details about himself, the hospital where 
 he found himself last, his former doctor, all of which we 
 were soon able to corroborate. He had what we called a 
 "fugue" or "poriomania." Cases like this have been reported 
 where the person disappeared for as many as three years. 
 Indeed, they are not as rare as you may suppose. 
 
 Everybody congratulated me on my diagnosis, and I 
 myself was greatly elated. The superintendent assured me 
 that I had all good reason to be proud of myself and he went
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 55 
 
 on to state, to my profound disappointment and displeasure, 
 that he would report the case to a medical society. I had 
 spent a tremendous amount of time and effort on it and 
 desired to publish it as my first contribution to medical litera- 
 ture. But he was the superintendent of the hospital, I was 
 merely a practicing doctor; and so there was nothing else 
 to do but face the situation with a stout heart. "Very well, 
 sir," I said, but I felt quite differently, of course. When 
 I told my colleagues about it they thought it was a huge 
 Joke ; some of them even ventured to assure me that I had 
 all good reason to be happy, for was I not saved the trouble 
 of reading the paper before the medical society? A few 
 days before the meeting, the superintendent asked me to 
 bring him my prepared paper, but when I read it to him, he 
 found himself face to face with an embarrassing situation. 
 He asked me where I had gotten my numerous references, 
 for I quoted from Italian, German and French sources, and 
 when I went on to say that they were from the original and 
 not mere translations, he felt reticent and faint about read- 
 ing the paper as his own, for he could neither read nor 
 translate these languages. "Now, I'll tell you, Brill, you 
 had better go there and read it yourself," he said. I was 
 very much pleased at this and felt quite relieved. But I 
 soon learned that the programs were already printed and 
 that the superintendent was down for reading the case. I 
 went before the society and everybody thought it was the 
 superintendent's paper and that he sent me merely to read it 
 for him. You may realize how deeply I felt about the whole 
 affair. Finally, to cap the climax, after I had read the paper, 
 an editor of an obscure Medical Journal asked me for it for 
 publication in his journal. I refused and told him that I 
 would have it sent to a journal of neurology or psychiatry. 
 But he lost no time to speak to the superintendent about it, 
 with whom he had considerable influence, and I was soon
 
 56 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 compelled to give him the paper with as much grace as I 
 could then command. Now I am dwelling quite at length 
 on the phase of the situation because I would like you to 
 note carefully that there was enough of the disagreeable and 
 unpleasant associated with the whole experience to account 
 for my forgetting the name of the patient. 
 
 For hours at end I sat there writing down the associations, 
 
 but I was not a whit nearer to knowing the name than when 
 
 I began. Various details and incidents came swarming into 
 
 my mind and I had to write mighty rapidly to keep pace 
 
 with them. I could see clearly how this New York patient 
 
 looked, the color of his hair, the peculiar expression on his 
 
 face. I became discouraged and thought to myself, "if that 
 
 is the way to find a thing through the Freudian method, 1 
 
 shall never be a Freudian." It was now evening and one 
 
 of my colleagues, surprised to find me indoors, asked me 
 
 to make his rounds for him inasmuch as I was not going 
 
 out. I consented gladly, for I was tired of these Freudian 
 
 labors. But when I was done, I felt refreshed and returned 
 
 to the associations with renewed interest. At eleven o'clock 
 
 I was still in as much darkness about the name as before. I 
 
 went to bed disheartened and thoroughly disgusted with the 
 
 whole affair. At about four o'clock in the morning I awoke 
 
 and made a supreme effort to dismiss it from my mind, but 
 
 in vain. Nolens volens, I soon began to associate in bed, 
 
 and finally, at about a little after five, the long-sought name 
 
 suddenly came to me. My joy and elation was not at all 
 
 free from a sense of relief; it was as if I had solved a long 
 
 vexing problem. I have no doubt now that had I not been 
 
 able to find it, I probably would never have continued to 
 
 take the slightest interest in Freud. I spent so much time 
 
 and effort in trying to ferret it out that I felt quite out of 
 
 humor with myself; but I was well compensated no less 
 
 by the sense of pleasure and satisfaction that went with
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 57 
 
 the discovery, than by the fresh conviction it gave me in 
 Freudian psychology. 
 
 Now what was the situation ? Let me say first that when 
 you begin to associate freely, you will soon be surprised to 
 find that thousand of associations begin pouring in upon 
 consciousness. Sometimes, three or four of these associa- 
 tions come at the same moment and you pause and wonder 
 which one to write down first. You soon make some selec- 
 tion and continue. In my own case, I observed that a few 
 very definite associations kept on recurring continually. 
 Every time I asked myself the name of this New York 
 patient, there would invariably come to my mind the case of 
 a real epileptic I then had in the Zurich hospital. His name 
 was Appenzeller, he was just a Swiss peasant, and I ex- 
 plained the association on the ground that they were both 
 epileptics, the New York patient, as you remember, being a 
 psychic epileptic. Another continually recurring association 
 was this: When I thought of the hospital in Long Island 
 and all that happened there during the five years I was con- 
 nected with it, one particular scene would stand out very 
 clearly and prominently ; my mind would revert to it all the 
 time. There were very often forest fires near the hospital 
 and on many occasions we had to go out and check them lest 
 they reached our buildings. This particular scene was on 
 a Friday; there was a big fire raging near the hospital and 
 we had to send out as many doctors and nurses as we could 
 possibly spare to help control it. I was there to see that 
 there was no confusion, that things were carried out prop- 
 erly; I was chatting with a physician who was with me in 
 the same capacity. The fire was consuming a good deal of 
 scrub pine ; and now and then an attendant would succeed 
 in shooting one of the rabbits that were fleeing from the 
 brush wood. As I was standing there, the superintendent 
 came up to us, passed some remark or other, and then spying
 
 58 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 a rabbit some distance away, asked one of the attendants 
 for his shot-gun to try his skill, saying: "Let's see if I can 
 get that rabbit." We all looked on knowingly, for we never 
 had very much faith in the superintendent's marksmanship, 
 and no mistake, he missed his aim and the rabbit escaped. 
 He turned to me and declared somewhat uneasily, and by 
 way of explanation, that his fingers slipped, for it was be- 
 ginning to rain. I seemingly concurred in the observation, 
 but in my heart I smiled at his discomfiture. I could see him 
 very plainly as he stood there, saying, "Let's see if I can get 
 that rabbit," and he would then aim, shoot and miss it. 
 Finally I saw the scene again in the morning, and with the 
 words, "Let's see if I can get that rabbit," the name came 
 to me. It was Lapin, the French word for rabbit. Later 
 on when I actually counted my associations I found that 
 this particular association came up twenty-eight times more 
 than any of the others. 
 
 This may seem strange to you, but that is exactly the way 
 the mind works unconsciously. The name was symbolically 
 represented by the scene ; the whole situation was under re- 
 pression and that is the manner in which the unconscious 
 elaborated it. The repressed emotion attached itself to an 
 actual occurrence : the superintendent fails to shoot the 
 rabbit; i.e., he fails to deprive me of the case. At the time 
 of this incident I came from Paris and I tried not merely 
 to talk French, but to think in French; and though I was 
 in Switzerland where they speak Swiss-German, there were 
 a great many people in my service from the French part of 
 the country who spoke French. And so it was quite natural 
 for the name to have thus presented itself in French guise. 
 You can easily see also why I thought of Appenzeller. 
 There was the sound association of the first part of Appen- 
 zeller, Appen, Lapin ; and what is just as important, both 
 patients were epileptics. You may thus see, first, that there
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 59 
 
 was something distinctly disagreeable and painful associated 
 with the name, and secondly, that there was a definite sym- 
 bolic expression of it in the form of a repressed emotion. 
 
 That the image of the superintendent's shooting at the 
 rabbit should thus symbolically express the whole situation 
 will not sound so strange to you when you under- 
 stand what we mean by symbols. We may define and 
 a symbol as an imperfect comparison between con- 
 two objects which in reality may have very little B 
 resemblance; it is nothing but a form of comparison. If 
 you observe children as they grow up and learn to talk, you 
 will find that they are always thinking in pictures or symbols. 
 There can be no doubt that they do not think in the sense 
 that we generally suppose, that is, in the sense of reasoning, 
 but that they merely associate and compare. Numerous ex- 
 amples may be cited to substantiate this. 
 
 A little girl once pointed to her knee which was bruised 
 by a fall and exclaimed to her father : "Papa, here is a 
 'babble.' " He was at first hard put to understand how she 
 could think of calling the wound on her knee a "babble" 
 because he knew that she called an apple a "babble." But 
 upon a little reflection, he soon saw what she meant. The 
 little girl was fourteen months old when she first began to 
 see apples in an orchard in the country; she would try to 
 pick up those that had fallen from the trees and would call 
 them "babbles." Now you have all observed that an apple 
 in falling from a tree receives what appears to be a wound, 
 a sort of round dark yellowish mark. To the little child the 
 contusion on her knee looked exactly like this mark, and 
 so, by association, she called that, too, a "babble," but there 
 was really no more real resemblance between the two than 
 between Lapin, the name of the patient, ana a real rabbit. 
 We see this same phenomenon among grown-ups ; when one
 
 60 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 invents a new piece of machinery he always names it in 
 terms of what he knows, or he may select its most important 
 attribute or attributes and name it accordingly. Automobile 
 means self-moving, "auto" and "mobile," but not everything 
 that moves by itself is an automobile, so that the name of 
 and by itself will tell very little indeed to a person who has 
 never seen this horseless machine. This applies also to such 
 names as hydroplane, aeroplane, and the like. The new 
 invention was denned in terms of our previous experience. 
 
 I recall now a little boy whom I knew very well ; he was 
 only two and a half years old and he would come to my room 
 and I would give him a pad of paper and a pencil to play 
 with. One day he drew what appeared to be a little circle 
 and came up to me and said, "Here's an autobile." He did 
 in fact the very thing that the inventor or any intelligent 
 grown-up person does; to him the wheel was the predomi- 
 nant and characteristic element in the automobile. Thus we 
 see here a form of comparison, which is, in the final analysis, 
 the sum and substance of all our thinking. When you de- 
 clare, for instance, that you will think over some problem, 
 you know very well from experience that if you wait a 
 little while, you will be able to reach some sort of solution. 
 In the final analysis, we are empiricists. Meanwhile it con- 
 tinues to revolve in your mind; the particular situation is 
 juxtaposed to similar situations, the particular condition is 
 contrasted with similar conditions. Finally you decide the 
 problem ; it is really decided for you. Of course, the nature 
 of the decision depends entirely upon the type and char- 
 acter of the individual. As a physician, if I defer stating 
 a diagnosis of which I am not sure, I am merely taking a 
 little more time to compare the particular patient in question 
 with many others whom, it seems to me, he resembles. 
 Finally I reach a conclusion; the case is either of this type 
 or is allied to it, because it is absolutely characteristic of it.
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 61 
 
 So, too, a tried and astute general can decide and act quickly, 
 for his accumulated past experience affords him immediate 
 basis for quick and sound judgment. 
 
 When my little boy was about three years old he was 
 playing one day with a box of geometrical figures as used 
 in a Montessori school. As you may know, these figures 
 are all of jet black pasted on a white background. Pointing 
 to one, he said, "What is this, Daddy?" I told him it was 
 a triangle, to which he replied, "Then I'll sing a triangle," 
 and he motioned with his arms in accompaniment. He then 
 put it aside and inquired about another figure and when I 
 told him it was a square, he said, "Then I'll sing a square." 
 "And what's this, Daddy ?" "An octagon ;" and so he con- 
 tinued repeating in each case that he would play that par- 
 ticular figure. I was wondering how he came to this strange 
 idea when I noticed that among the figures he took out of 
 the box was the circle; in fact, judging by its position it 
 must have been the first figure to be removed from the box. 
 Now the jet black circle on the white background showed a 
 close resemblance to phonograph records of which he was 
 very fond, indeed so fond that he would even cry for them 
 on many occasions. When he looked at the figure of the 
 circle he undoubtedly took it for a phonograph record and 
 after going through the movements of playing it, he took the 
 next figure from the box. This, being the triangle, looked 
 strange to him and caused him to ask what it was, but it did 
 not interfere with the association already established in his 
 mind. In his infantile mind he saw a resemblance between 
 two things and straightway he transferred the significant 
 attribute of the one to the other. He at once realized what 
 seemed to him the essential similitude in a concrete case ; he 
 carried it, so to say, to its logical conclusion. We may see 
 the same mode of association in modern art; the artist may 
 say he has painted a nude lady walking down the stairs but
 
 62 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 what we may really perceive is but a conglomeration of 
 geometrical figures. We have here an infantile expression 
 on the part of the artist. The same process of thought can 
 be observed in some modern music. I know a man to whom 
 every song is a color, and every color a song; like my little 
 boy who sang a triangle he is thinking in pictures or symbols. 
 We see this same form of expression also in the dream. 
 
 Here is another little incident relating to my little boy 
 that I feel is characteristic of the mode in which children 
 associate ideas. When he was about three years old, he was 
 attending a Montessori School ; he was accustomed to be 
 taken there in the morning either by the maid or by my 
 wife. One day it stormed so very hard, that we could not 
 get a taxi or take him to school under an umbrella. My wife 
 was worried and wondered what to do, and I told her that 
 I would carry him to school myself. I had him put his head 
 on my shoulder and quickly we made our way in the heavy 
 storm to the school building, which, by the way, was only 
 a few blocks away from our home. He seemed to enjoy the 
 experience immensely. About six months or so later it so 
 happened that I had a little time and I said: "Shall I take 
 you to school?" At once he answered: "Is it raining, 
 Daddy ?" I did not know at first what he meant but I soon 
 saw its significance. In other words, to him at that time, 
 the act of my taking him to school became associated with 
 rain. Behaviorists have pointed out that animals think in 
 the same way; it is indeed stupid to maintain that they do 
 not reason ; they merely have not as much brains as the 
 human being, therefore, not as many associations. The same 
 holds true in defectives, they have not as much wealth of 
 associations at their disposal as the average individual. When 
 we shall take up the association experiment I shall try to 
 show you how we can determine by noting their associations, 
 the mental deficiency even of those who are only slightly
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 63 
 
 defective, such as in morons, when the ordinary tests of the 
 Binet- Simon type will not show anything. 
 
 Observe children who have not yet realized the nature of 
 abstract ideas and you will find that they invariably express 
 themselves concretely, by means of comparison. A little 
 girl of three years old was once taken to the aquarium and 
 she saw among other things, a seal, with whose character- 
 istic alacrity of movement she was greatly impressed. A 
 few days later she talked enthusiastically about all that she 
 had seen there, and said among other things, that she saw 
 a thing that went this way, and here she motioned with her 
 hands the quick movements of the seal. She had forgotten 
 its name but she remembered its important attribute. You 
 have observed children very often say "by-bye," when they 
 finish drinking their milk ; it is the first word that they 
 usually learn. The idea is suggested to them by the analogy 
 to departure. One can always find a definite reason for the 
 apparent incongruous expressions evinced by children. It 
 is simply a question of tracing their mode of association or 
 comparison between things. The same mechanisms are con- 
 stantly seen in the bizarre behaviors of the insane. 
 
 There was a patient in the Psychiatric clinic at Zurich who 
 would place folded rose petals against her forehead and hit 
 them, thus producing a crackling sound. Nobody could 
 fathom the meaning of this action until Professor Bleuler 
 began to study her case thoroughly and found that she be- 
 came insane upon her lover's committing suicide by shooting 
 himself in the head. Thus her behavior in this particular 
 instance was a symbolic representation of the shooting; she 
 was reliving an old episode. 
 
 The infantile form of thinking through simple comparison 
 becomes less apparent as age advances. The child gradually 
 enriches his vocabulary to enable him to express words in 
 the constant acquisition of new knowledge. He is compelled
 
 64 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 to accept new terms for abstract ideas without resorting to 
 conscious elaboration as he was wont to do in childhood. 
 In his unconscious, however, the same process of imperfect 
 comparisons prevail. That is why later in life such imperfect 
 comparisons or symbols strike us as strange and foolish. 
 When a grown-up hears her mother reminisce that as a little 
 girl she said "la" when she meant "color," she not only ex- 
 periences a feeling of strangeness but is also somewhat 
 abashed at her former childishness, but the situation becomes 
 clear when she consults her father's diary. She then finds 
 that when she was ten months old her father gave her a pad 
 of paper with a pencil and encouraged her to scribble by 
 drawing for her crude pictures of the house dog King. She 
 soon learned her lesson and whenever she saw her father 
 with the pad she would point to it and say "la" which meant 
 "draw." La was one of the few syllables she could utter 
 at that age. Later when she could call King "Thim," she 
 would often say to her father "La Thim," which meant 
 "draw a picture of King." Still later "La" not only meant 
 to. write or draw but also became identified with color, un- 
 doubtedly because some of the pencils she used were colored, 
 so that when a multicolored ball was given her for the first 
 time, she immediately designated it as "La ball," in contrast 
 to the plain white ball with which she played for some time. 
 Such symbols constantly recur in dreams and in other pro- 
 ductions of unconscious mentation, but as we are usually 
 ignorant of their origin they strike us as mysterious and 
 foreign. 
 
 So words uttered or written are nothing but symbols of 
 actual activities. The alphabet originally consisted of 
 symbols ; the addition of vowels and consonants was a much 
 later development. In the Hebrew alphabet, for instance, 
 which is a direct descendant of the Phoenician or first known 
 alphabet, the alef represents graphically an ox and the beth
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 65 
 
 a house. So, too, the Chinese ideographs and the hiero- 
 glyphics of the ancient Egyptians are also symbolic repre- 
 sentations of definite objects. 
 
 We find also certain characteristic symbols among all 
 nations. We, for instance, have the eagle as an emblem ; 
 the Romans, as you know, had the wolf ; the English the 
 lion, etc. It is also interesting to note that the guilds the 
 world over had special symbols for the various trades, some 
 of which still survive, the barber's pole and the pawn broker's 
 sign, for instance. It is interesting to note also that the 
 barber's pole was originally white spotted with red that 
 signified blood, for in the old days the barber was a sort of 
 half -doctor, performing such operations as blood letting and 
 cupping, for instance ; and indeed, he is still regarded as such 
 in Russia and some other European countries. I am sure 
 you are all also aware of the symbolic significance of colors ; 
 green, as you all know, signifies hope, red love, yellow jeal- 
 ousy or cowardice. In the same way, too, there is not a word 
 but that has a definite symbol, and it is instructive to note 
 how the original symbol is in time distorted. Examples of 
 this are legion. You may all know, I am sure, that the word 
 person is derived from the Latin per sonna which means 
 through a mask ; originally an actor performing before a 
 large audience used a megaphone to make his voice carry, 
 but as it was somewhat ludicrous and unaesthetic to have 
 him strut about the stage with a megaphone, it was found 
 best to conceal it under a mask. Likewise, imbecile at 
 present denotes a person who is mentally weak. Originally 
 it signified merely physical debility or more particularly, a 
 person walking on a cane. 
 
 Now there are certain symbols that are ethnic; they re- 
 semble certain things to such an extent that you find them 
 wherever there is an unconscious mentation. Mythology 
 and primitive religions particularly abound with them, for in
 
 66 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 this sphere of mental activity we find the human being in 
 yet an infantile condition ; the difference between reality and 
 fiction is not yet clearly marked. We note here., as in the 
 dream, the preponderance of sex symbols. Indeed when one 
 delves into the mainsprings of primitive religion, one finds 
 that it is centered entirely around sex; it may be said that 
 all our religions are intrinsically precipitates or extracts from 
 the original Phallic worship. 1 In every Hindu temple even 
 to-day, for instance, the altar is made up of the "yoni 
 lingam" which is only a union of the male and female 
 genitals on a pedestal surrounded by a snake which euphem- 
 istically is a symbol of eternity. Those students who have 
 delved deeply into the subject have pointed out, however, 
 that the snake is really a symbol of the male genitals. 
 Primitive man before he knew enough about the principles 
 of biology could only think of one thing, that the genitals, 
 because they produce life, were symbols of life; and that is 
 why they were carried in procession and worshiped. And 
 what is unusually interesting is that you find this same 
 symbolic expression even to-day. When we examine the 
 language that we find in dreams, deliria, hallucinations, and 
 delusions, we are at once impressed with that fact; our 
 unconscious mentation is still swathed in the mystery of this 
 time-old symbolism and it is altogether inscrutable to one 
 who does not understand the language of the unconscious. 
 
 There are many symbols that have lost their original mean- 
 ing for us to-day, though they are still commonly used under 
 different forms. It is noteworthy that the cross was orig- 
 inally a Phallic symbol and like so many other symbols, was 
 absorbed into Christianity from Paganism. St. Paul and 
 other leaders of the Christian Church apparently deemed it 
 best to allow these Pagan symbols, gradually giving them, 
 
 Richard Payne Knight, "Two Essays on the Worship of 
 Priapus," Privately Printed, London, 1865.
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 67 
 
 however, different connotations. As has been well pointed 
 out, "the church has played a double part, a part of sheer 
 antagonism, forcing heathen customs into the shade, into a 
 more or less surreptitious and unprogressive life, and a part 
 of adaptation, baptizing them into Christ, giving them a 
 Christian name and interpretation and often modifying their 
 form." x Thus Christmas, which was originally a Pagan 
 holiday full of many primitive symbols, was transferred to 
 Christianity and gradually acquired an altogether different 
 significance ; and that is why we may still see traces of the 
 old celebration of the Roman kalends and Saturnalia in a 
 great many of the ceremonies that go with Christmas, par- 
 ticularly in Greek churches in the Orient. 
 
 It perhaps may have occurred to you to inquire why the 
 snake should be a symbol of the male genital. In the light 
 of what I have already told you about the nature of thought 
 processes, the reason is not far to seek. Though there is 
 no resemblance between the snake and the male genital to 
 the conscious eye, there is nevertheless a hidden, suggested 
 similarity between them sufficient, at any rate, for the un- 
 conscious to draw the analogy. 2 The story of Adam and Eve 
 now takes on its real allegorical significance. Adam and 
 Eve represent the infancy of humanity, when it was un- 
 troubled, naked and free ; when it was in paradise. Then 
 comes the snake, the symbol of sex, and the situation takes 
 on an altogether different aspect. In other words, the child 
 in its infancy is in paradise, but as soon as it grows to the 
 age of puberty, it is driven out of paradise and must now 
 "live by the sweat of the brow." The story becomes per- 
 fectly comprehensible to us in this light. 
 
 Thus far, then, I have tried to make clear to you how the 
 
 1 Cf. Miles, "Christmas." 
 
 2 Dreams about snakes are very common and we must guard 
 against the conclusion that the snake necessarily signifies the male 
 genital in every case.
 
 68 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 unconscious mental activity consists essentially of compari- 
 son, and how the results of this comparison by reason of 
 their peculiar symbolic character are naturally not quite clear 
 to the conscious mind. Consciously, for instance, you can 
 tell a potato or an apple just at a glance, but in the uncon- 
 scious or in mental confusion you may associate a host of 
 other things with their more or less characteristic qualities 
 of roundness, smoothness or color, before you will know 
 that it is the one or the other. We find a similar state in 
 clouding due to some organic brain disturbances, such as 
 aphasia, in which certain fibers of the brain tissues are 
 destroyed through a hemorrhage, for instance, and the brain 
 as a result cannot function normally. 
 
 In brief, a symbol is simply an analogy between impres- 
 sions of the present and past and depending upon the in- 
 dividual it is either simple or complex. 
 
 Besides the form of forgetting already considered, there 
 is another form which we find in what we call "concealing 
 memories." The latter are really not lapses but distortions 
 of memory. We encounter them when we begin to investi- 
 gate how far back into life the memory can go. Ask people 
 what they remember of their childhood and it is remarkable 
 to see how little they can tell you ; indeed, some 
 ceding- will say that they can recall nothing. You will 
 
 be furthermore impressed with the comparative 
 insignificance of the reproduced material, which is surpris- 
 ingly trivial in character and seems to have little or nothing 
 to do with the individual's life. The earliest recollections 
 seem to preserve the unimportant and accidental, whereas, 
 usually, though not universally, not a trace is found in the 
 adult memory of the weighty and affective impressions of 
 this early period. An individual recalled, for instance, that 
 his father lifted him up to a bird cage ; one man told me some
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 69 
 
 time ago that he remembers that his mother found a cent, — 
 and nothing more. Examination shows that these indifferent 
 childhood memories owe their existence to a process of dis- 
 placement, by which we mean a deflection of a certain 
 amount of energy to some extraneous material, to an idea 
 or emotion to which it really does not belong. We observe 
 the phenomenon daily. A man may have quarrelled with 
 his wife, for instance, and now relieves himself of his ire 
 by finding fault with his stenographer's spelling and dis- 
 charging her. These memories represent in the reproduc- 
 tion the substitute for other really significant impressions 
 whose direct reproduction is hindered by some resistance. 
 They owe their existence not to their own content, but to 
 an associative relation of their content to another repressed 
 thought and are therefore justly called "concealing mem- 
 ories." They themselves are not important, but they conceal 
 something. The individual whose father lifted him up to a 
 bird cage did not remember the experience because of its 
 importance, but because there was back of it something that 
 was repressed and was now concealed under that memory. 
 
 The content of the concealing memory seems to belong 
 to the first years of childhood, but the thoughts it represents 
 belong to a later period of the individual in question. 
 Freud calls this form of displacement retroactive (acting 
 backward) or regressive. The reverse relationship is more 
 often found, that is, an indifferent impression of the most 
 remote period becomes the concealing memory in conscious- 
 ness which simply owes its existence to an association with 
 an earlier experience, against whose direct reproduction 
 there are resistances. These are called encroaching or inter- 
 posing concealing memories. What most concerns the 
 memory lies here, in point of time, beyond the concealing 
 memory. They all show a remarkable resemblance to the 
 forgetting of proper names and faulty recollections, as for
 
 70 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 instance, in the case of "Lapin," where I thought of "Appen- 
 zeller." These new names or memories that encroach 
 upon our consciousness when we try to recollect the 
 original one are always in some way related to the real 
 memories that are behind them. 
 
 The question as to how far back into childhood our 
 memories go has been investigated by many writers. They 
 found that there is a wide individual variation, inasmuch as 
 some trace their first reminiscences to the sixth month of 
 life, while others can recall nothing before the sixth or even 
 eighth year. Simple questioning is not enough, as every- 
 day experience in psychoanalytic work demonstrates. The 
 results should later be subjected to a study in which the 
 person furnishing the information must participate, that is, 
 the memories should be analyzed. For the infantile am- 
 nesia, that is, the failure of memory for the first years of 
 our lives should not be accepted as a matter of course. We 
 should remember that a child of four years is capable of 
 great intellectual accomplishments and complex emotional 
 feelings. I have seen children of that age fall in love. Dr. 
 Sanford Bell of Clarke University has found this amorous 
 disposition to exist even at the age of two. It is really re- 
 markable how little of these psychic processes have as a 
 rule been retained in later years and yet we have every 
 reason to believe that these forgotten childhood activities 
 have not glided off without leaving a trace in the develop- 
 ment of the person. We must remember that a person is 
 always the product of the sum total of his impressions and 
 that it is absolutely impossible for him to cut out a period, 
 or block, as it were, of his life and go ahead. There is no 
 break in the continuity of the psychic life. I have found 
 that many individuals who declared they had not the 
 faintest memory of their early childhood experiences, had 
 really accomplished in that early period many significant
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 71 
 
 things, which were gradually revealed in dreams or casual 
 associations and which were later corroborated by the diary 
 kept by the parent. Perhaps the most interesting case of 
 this kind was that of a man whom I analyzed for six months, 
 during which he brought to the surface many things which 
 we felt were probably true. After five months he received 
 a letter from his father in which the latter stated that he was 
 sending him under separate cover a diary that the parent 
 kept from the day of the patient's birth until the age of 
 about thirty. We were very glad to receive it, and it has 
 given me much pleasure, because it has confirmed practically 
 everything concerning which we entertained any doubts. In 
 some cases it is remarkable how special incidents are cor- 
 roborated. A man whom I am treating at present visited the 
 nurse whom he had from the age of one and a half to eight. 
 She related experiences of his early childhood that he never 
 knew anything about, and here, too, her information cor- 
 roborated everything that I assumed on a theoretical basis. 
 
 As I pointed out, children take up impressions from the 
 very beginning of their existence. As time goes on, Locke's 
 "tabula rasa" becomes more and more filled with them, and 
 like a book, the older the individual, the more voluminous it 
 is. These traces of early life always remain and because 
 they are subjected to repression, they come to the surface 
 more or less disguised and incomplete; they are falsified or 
 displaced in point of time and place. Motives may be dis- 
 covered, however, which explain these disfigurements and we 
 find that these memory lapses are not the result of a mere un- 
 reliable memory. Powerful forces from a later period have 
 molded the memory capacity of our infantile experiences, 
 and it is probably due to these same forces that the under- 
 standing of our childhood is generally so very strange to us. 
 
 A case of "concealing memories" reported by Professor 
 Freud is that of a young man who declared that he remem-
 
 72 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 bered seeing himself standing by the side of his aunt and 
 asking her the difference between the letter m and the letter n. 
 There was no reason why he should remember this par- 
 ticular experience, except in that it concealed something else 
 vastly more significant and important. The thoughts repre- 
 sented by the memory concerned itself with his wish later 
 in life to know the difference between a boy and a girl ; he 
 wanted his aunt to tell him the difference, but he dared not 
 broach the subject. Later on, however, he found that the 
 difference was very similar to that between the letter m and n ; 
 one has one stroke more than the other. 
 
 One of my patients informed me once that his memory 
 went back to the time of his baptism, when he was about a 
 week old. He maintained that he distinctly remembered the 
 house and the stairway leading up to the first floor where he 
 was supposed to have been baptized. He particularly re- 
 called a lamp standing at the foot of the stairs and the 
 minister who performed the baptism, a tall man in a black 
 frock coat. He remembered vividly how his head was 
 totally submerged in a basin of water. I was naturally 
 skeptical and explained to him that I thought it was a con- 
 cealing memory which probably hid something else of a much 
 later date. He then informed me that he had entertained 
 this memory for many years, but that when he imparted it to 
 his mother a few years ago she laughed, declaring that there 
 was no truth in it, that in the first place, he was not born 
 in this particular house, but that he had merely lived there 
 from the age of four to six, that she could not recall this 
 particular lamp, that the minister who really baptized him 
 was not tall, and what was more, that the baby's head is not 
 submerged in a basin of water during baptism. Notwith- 
 standing his mother's absolute denial, the patient continued 
 to entertain this memory; he strongly felt that it was true 
 despite all facts to the contrary. I called his attention to the
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 73 
 
 fact that bis mother had no motive for denying it and that 
 so far as I know, it would be impossible to retain anything 
 from so early an age. We then proceeded to analyze it. 
 He stated that the most vivid element in the memory was 
 the lamp and so I asked him to concentrate his attention on 
 it and give me his associations. He could see the lamp at 
 the foot of the stairs, the stairway, and the room on the first 
 floor. He then recalled that at the age of about five years 
 he was standing one afternoon in that room watching a 
 Swedish servant who was either on a high chair or a step- 
 ladder cleaning the chandelier. He became very inquisitive 
 sexually and made a great effort to look under her clothes. 
 She noticed it and gave him a very strong rebuke. He then 
 recalled that a few years later he watched through a keyhole 
 to see his mother dress, and somehow she caught him and 
 punished him very severely for it. He was very much 
 humiliated, for she took him downstairs to the dining room 
 and told his father and brother what he had done. At about 
 the same age, probably a little before this episode with his 
 mother, he was on the roof one evening and spied a woman 
 undressing in a house across the street. In his great ex- 
 citement, he ran down to call his brother, but when he re- 
 turned the woman had already slipped a nightgown on and 
 was now pulling down the shades. He told me that for 
 years he regretted that he went to call his brother. He kept 
 on reproducing more scenes, all of which dealt with 
 frustrated sexual looking. 
 
 We must remember that sexual curiosity is a very com' 
 mon, indeed, I may say, a universal mechanism in all 
 children who are brought up as the average parents bring 
 them up to-day, without answering their questions, impart- 
 ing to them nothing of the vital knowledge for which they 
 crave. Children perpetually ask questions, and if these are 
 not answered, they develop a strong inquisitiveness for look-
 
 74 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 ing, particularly in homes where the mother is prudish and 
 takes every opportunity to conceal and thus impress upon 
 the child's sensitive mind that there is something to be hid- 
 den. If it is for nothing other than the exercising of the 
 faculties of intellect, the child possesses here already suffi- 
 cient material to become inquisitive. But consider also the 
 presence of the biological factor ; nature has endowed every 
 human being with the desire to know about sex because the 
 latter is a tremendously important problem in life. The 
 lamp, therefore, represented in the psychic life of this 
 patient a contrast association of darkness which stood in the 
 way of his sexual inquisitiveness. That is why the lamp 
 element was so accentuated in his memory. 
 
 The question now presents itself, "Why did he remember 
 the fact of his baptism?" This young man is a good 
 Christian, his parents are Christians, but his paternal 
 grandfather was a Jew. He himself shows no traces of 
 Semitism ; the only thing he retains from his grandfather 
 is the name. It is a German name which is often mistaken 
 for a Jewish one, and for this reason, it has given him con- 
 siderable trouble. He was refused, for instance, admission 
 to a certain school because of his name. At college it was 
 suspected that he was Jewish and on that account he failed 
 to be elected to a fraternity that admitted only Gentiles. 
 The concealing memory of his baptism is thus a compen- 
 sation for his suspected Judaism and that is why it retained 
 its vividness, his mother's denial to the contrary. He had 
 to be assured that he was baptized and therefore was a 
 Christian. On the whole, the memory represents a religious 
 scene in order to hide an immoral scene of marked affective 
 content. At the age of puberty there was a complete re- 
 pression of all sexual elements, and he became a model boy 
 in every way. He is now over thirty-six years old and has 
 never had any kind of relations with the opposite sex. He
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FORGETTING 75 
 
 is a shy, seclusive, reserved personality and is remarkably 
 ignorant of everything sexual. This is only a reaction to his 
 early immorality, and was affected by the various shocks or 
 set-backs he sustained in his effort to adjust himself to his 
 adult sexuality. Had his mother realized at the time she 
 caught him peeping that his inquisitiveness was only an ex- 
 pression of his budding sexuality and had she explained to 
 him in a frank, sympathetic way that it was not nice for a 
 little boy to do this or that, he would probably have been able 
 like his brother to adjust himself normally, to find a mate, 
 and marry. But as it is, his parents regretted to the day of 
 their death that they could not see him married. 
 
 Thus what we generally look upon as forgetting is not 
 that at all ; certain things are merely pushed into the uncon- 
 sciousness, because of something unpleasant associated with 
 them; we are not aware of them consciously and so we 
 naturally presume we have forgotten them. We may crowd 
 out something from consciousness, but we never forget it; 
 it always remains in the unconscious. What profound truth 
 in the observation of an old Greek philosopher who, when 
 called upon to teach one the art of remembering replied: 
 "Rather teach me the art of forgetting!"
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 
 
 We do not have to go far to be convinced how significant 
 a role the unconscious plays in life. The proof is at our 
 door. All the "little" mistakes that we all are constantly 
 making, lapses in talking, writing, etc., our so called for- 
 getting and absent-mindedness show very definitely to what 
 a surprising extent our thoughts and actions are influenced 
 by the unconscious. If we have our eyes open, examples of 
 such unconscious manifestations may be found on all sides. 
 I shall cite some to you out of a vast number that have come 
 to my attention from time to time, and I hope they will 
 prove sufficiently interesting to stimulate you to observation 
 in your own daily lives. 
 
 Mr. L., a newspaper man, once assured me that he could 
 disprove Freud's theory of forgetting with very little effort. 
 He proceeded at once to tell me that he had oc- 
 ting- casion to write to his friend living in Boston, and 
 
 upon addressing the letter he found he forgot his 
 last name, and that it was only after a considerable amount 
 of thought that he could recall that it was Murphy. He con- 
 tinued to declare quite warmly that it was strange and sur- 
 prising that he should thus forget the name of a friend, 
 formerly his school mate and chum, whom he could not 
 associate with absolutely any disagreeable or painful ex- 
 perience. We proceeded to analyze the case. I asked him 
 to tell me something about his friend whom he designated 
 as Jack. He associated his name with Murphy of Tammany 
 
 76
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 77 
 
 Hall and though the former was a Republican he felt that 
 that was no reason why he should dislike the name Murphy. 
 After associating for a little while, he ended by saying: 
 "You see, then, doctor, there is absolutely nothing disagree- 
 able connected with the name." But I urged him to con- 
 tinue his associations, and finally there came to his mind 
 another Murphy who played an altogether different part in 
 his life from that of his friend. The moment he uttered his 
 name, I could see a marked change in his facial expression 
 and voice; he became flushed with anger. This man de- 
 ceived him and still owed him money, and L. hated him. 
 That was sufficient to explain his temporary forgetting. 
 He never had occasion to write to his own friend before, he 
 always knew and thought of him as Jack and never as- 
 sociated him with Murphy ; besides, his friend had no 
 parents so that he had no opportunity to use his name even 
 under other circumstances. We must remember that we 
 think of a person in terms of the name that we call him by. 
 On the other hand, there was the name Murphy which was 
 associated in his mind with something distinctly painful, and 
 it was therefore natural that when he came to write to his 
 friend for the first time, he could not associate the disagree- 
 able element in his repression with his name. That was why 
 he was compelled to stop and recall it; he simply refused to 
 give his friend a name that was connected in his mind with 
 the painful and disagreeable. 
 
 We find the same mechanism in such episodes as this: 
 A woman meets a friend of hers who married recently and 
 instead of addressing her Mrs. Smith, calls her by her 
 maiden name. When you investigate the mistake you discover 
 that she has absolutely no respect for Mrs. Smith's husband, 
 and what is more, she did not want her to marry him from 
 the very beginning. We see this same thing when a woman 
 refuses to use her husband's name. There is no other reason
 
 78 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 than that of expediency why a woman should drop her own 
 name ; the practice of adopting the husband's name was in- 
 augurated originally mostly for the sake of convenience; it 
 eliminated various unnecessary complications. And as a 
 matter of fact, there are still primitive tribes that continue 
 the surname of the mother right through the family line. 
 But if it is customary for a married woman to take her 
 husband's name, we may safely say that it augurs little 
 good if she persists in holding on to her own maiden one; 
 it is particularly significant if she reverts to her own name, 
 after having been accustomed to use that of her husband 
 with whom she has lived for quite some time. A case like 
 this was reported to me a few years ago in which a woman 
 wrote a letter and instead of her marriage name signed her 
 maiden one. I remarked then that it was a bad omen, and I 
 know now that she is separated from her husband. It is a 
 different matter when a married woman retains her maiden 
 name because of some distinction or accomplishment to 
 which she properly can lay claim. Here the purpose is to 
 maintain whatever significance her special position may have, 
 distinct and separate from her relations as wife. Among 
 professional women, accordingly, it is common to retain the 
 maiden name, and as far as I know, the husband does not 
 seem to have any objection to it at all. We are always lay- 
 ing emphasis on the importance of individual cases; but we 
 may safely say that as a rule when a married woman uses 
 her maiden name, it means that in the unconscious she does 
 not wish to consider herself married. 
 
 It is interesting to observe a further illustration of this 
 principle in the substitution of another person's name for 
 one's own. A few years ago I received a letter from a 
 minister in Oklahoma, asking me to send him a list of books 
 for reading along Freudian lines. The letter was type- 
 written and there was at the bottom his name in hand-
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 79 
 
 writing, C. A. Brill. His real name was Beard and there 
 was the irresistible conclusion that he signed my name be- 
 cause he considered me an authority on the subject, and 
 unconsciously identified himself with me; he wished, one 
 might say, to know as much about psychoanalysis as I did. 
 When I related this incident to my class here, it was sug- 
 gested that the letter may have been signed by the minister's 
 stenographer, whereupon one of the students assured me 
 that if I showed her the letter she would be able to verify 
 the minister's signature, for she knew his handwriting very 
 well. She came from the same state and knew him per- 
 sonally; and what was more, it was upon her suggestion 
 that he wrote the letter to me. When she glanced at the 
 letter she immediately recognized his signature. And so 
 my conclusion was completely corroborated. 
 
 Now it was essentially no pleasant or agreeable motive that 
 prompted him to make that error ; there was the unconscious 
 wish to eliminate what seemed to him a shortcoming, a con- 
 dition of ignorance in relation to a subject which he con- 
 sciously desired to know and understand. We find this 
 same condition among neurotics. In treating them we often 
 learn that they cannot pronounce certain words, particularly 
 certain names. This whole motive of names plays a most 
 fascinating part in mythology; discover the name in some 
 fairy-stories and there is the greatest misfortune. You may 
 very often find among neurotics that the only reason why 
 they have difficulty in pronouncing and therefore stammer 
 over some particular word or name is because there is some- 
 thing painful and disagreeable connected with it. I am 
 going to illustrate this presently by a definite case of stam- 
 mering. 
 
 By way of digression, perhaps, let us say at this point 
 that it has been recognized by most students and observers 
 that most cases of stammering are not due to organic con-
 
 80 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 ditions, that indeed very few cases may be traced to some 
 disturbance in the throat or vocal organs. It is essentially 
 a neurotic disturbance that usually comes on at an early 
 period in a nervous type of individual and then gradually 
 assumes the character of a habit, in which form it continues 
 in the future. In studying an abnormal condition, it is 
 highly instructive to examine its normal counterpart. When 
 do you stammer yourself ? It is a common observation that 
 upon being asked your age, you will never answer im- 
 mediately. Some among us will even anticipate the next 
 question and hasten to answer it. I have heard of a woman 
 who was asked how old she was and after stammering for a 
 while, replied quite blandly, "In Boston." She did not wish 
 to reply, and at once turned her attention to the expected 
 question as to her place of birth. But we show no degree 
 of hesitation when we are called upon to respond to a ques- 
 tion to which we have no resistance. When you ask a 
 friend for a loan of ten dollars and he at once says, "Alright, 
 have it," then he really wishes to give it to you; but if he 
 pauses and says, "Now, let me think," you may be certain 
 that he does not want to lend it. Invite a friend to dinner 
 and if he stammers and stutters a reply, he is not anxious 
 to go; there is a psychic impediment somewhere. 
 
 When we study speech disturbances we find that they have 
 the same origin, they may be ultimately reduced to some 
 very simple inhibition begun at a very early age. The child, 
 for instance, may have done something that it knows it will 
 be punished for ; let us say it has stolen jam or candy. 
 When questioned it will hesitate to speak but on being 
 compelled to confess it will stammer on the significant 
 word. In time this particular word or expression con- 
 nected with the unpleasant episode gradually becomes gen- 
 eralized and the resulting condition remains more or less 
 fixed. Now I do not wish that you get the impression that
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 81 
 
 stammering is a simple condition that may be remedied by 
 merely probing its beginnings in the individual's psychic life; 
 it is one of the hardest neuroses to cure and only few of 
 those who receive treatment are ultimately in any real sense 
 cured. But to get more or less successful results at all, one 
 should combine psychoanalysis with vocal training, and con- 
 tinue the treatment for a long time. All my successful cases 
 have been under my care at least a year, sometimes longer. 
 This, of course, applies to those who began to stammer early 
 in life, to the so-called congenital cases, though there are 
 very few cases that I have seen in which the history reveals 
 the condition from the very beginning. Patients of this 
 type are difficult to cure, and every so-called remedy can be 
 of only temporary benefit to them. 
 
 A very intelligent stammerer, for instance, came to me for 
 treatment. He was a man of means and he had tried all 
 sorts of methods; some of them were indeed very ludicrous. 
 One man sold him some sort of appliance that the former 
 maintained was sure to cure him, but it was merely a belt 
 which the patient had to wear so tight around the waist 
 that every time he uttered a word, there was no mistaking 
 that he had it on. That distracted him, of course, and he 
 talked fairly well for a while. But the remedy soon lost its 
 magic potency; it is hard to say whether the belt stretched 
 or his waist became thinner, but he soon began to stammer 
 again. The sum and substance of the usual treatment that 
 patients of this kind get at the various schools, such as 
 stamping with the foot or speaking in a certain fluctuated 
 way, consists entirely of this distraction principle ; there is no 
 doubt but what it helps them a little, but that of and by 
 itself will not make for permanent results; the psychic 
 factors in the case must always be dealt with. 
 
 Of course there are some patients who never stutter at all 
 until they merge into a neurosis ; these can be cured through
 
 82 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 analysis ; but they can derive no permanent help from mere 
 training or distraction. The case of a man of this type came 
 to my attention some years ago. He stuttered in different 
 ways, with the arms, body and mouth. He could not touch a 
 glass of beer or a plate of soup without a fatal result: his 
 hand would turn down and the contents would be spilled. 
 Of ice cream he could have as much as his heart desired, 
 but for some mysterious reason, beer and soup were ab- 
 solutely tabooed. He also stammered badly, and as his 
 position demanded much telephone conversation, he was 
 compelled to give it up. I treated him and he did very well ; 
 in the course of time he was able to drink all of soup and 
 beer he wished, much to his great delight. But I could not 
 make any headway with his stuttering and it finally occurred 
 to me that there must be something definite connected with 
 it. This was his history: He lived a sort of common law life 
 with a woman for whom he sustained an apartment, while 
 he stayed with his mother who was a religious Catholic. He 
 introduced her to a friend of his with whom she presently 
 fell in love and who offered to marry her. She consented 
 and left her former friend. It was a terrible blow to the 
 patient for he had really intended to marry her himself; 
 and it was following this misfortune that he suffered his 
 nervous breakdown. It occurred to me that his condition 
 may perhaps be connected directly or indirectly with this 
 experience. When I began to investigate the matter, I 
 learned that he began to stutter with the sound of "k" or in 
 other words with the sound of "ck"; but as "c" has two 
 sounds, his condition soon spread to "s" and then to all 
 words beginning with "k," regardless of ' whether it was 
 pronounced or not, as for instance in such a word as "knife;" 
 and so finally he seemed to stammer almost on every letter. 
 I had noticed that he always referred to the particular 
 woman in question as "that woman" and I decided to in-
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 83 
 
 vestigate the matter. But the moment I asked him what 
 her name was he grew visibly affected, and declared ex- 
 citedly that he could not tell me. I assured him that I asked 
 the question out of no mere curiosity, but for a very definite 
 and important reason. When he refused to give me the 
 name, I closed the matter by stating that I could then do 
 nothing for him under the circumstances, for there is a 
 tacit understanding between me and my patients that they 
 are to hold nothing back from me, that they are to be an 
 open book to me, as it were. He was quite willing to leave 
 me, particularly since he felt he was much better anyway. 
 But in a few weeks he grew worse and returned to me. He 
 then explained that in his anger he actually had vowed 
 never to utter the woman's name again. I quieted him and 
 assured him that I would take the sin upon my own 
 shoulders. He finally was willing to tell her name if I 
 promised him that I would not write it down. I readily 
 consented and pointed out to him that, in my notes, I desig- 
 nated her as Miss W. Thus I finally succeeded in persuading 
 him to disclose to me her name. It was Keith. I was now 
 quite convinced why he stuttered ; it was the sound of "k" 
 which was under repression that was the significant factor in 
 the origin of his condition. I concluded at once that if my 
 theory was correct, he would now necessarily stutter on every 
 word beginning with "w," for as I said, I substituted that 
 letter for the "k" in the woman's name, and impressed it upon 
 his mind when I showed him the substitution in my notes. 
 About a week later he told me that he was otherwise ap- 
 preciably better but that his speech impediment was growing 
 worse; he proceeded to state that now he was not able to 
 pronounce even his brother's name ; and upon inquiring what 
 it was, he stammered out the name "W-W-W- William." 
 To be sure, the moment it became intimately connected in his 
 mind with the name of Keith in the substitutive relation
 
 84 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 noted, it was at once tabooed and repressed. After I ex- 
 plained to him the deeper meaning of these psychic processes 
 he gradually began to improve in his speech and finally re- 
 covered. 
 
 To return to the psychopathology of forgetting names. 
 Here is an interesting lapse of memory that was brought to 
 my attention by one of my patients. She told me she was 
 trying to think of a name of a small town near White 
 Plains and that the first name that came to her mind was 
 "Prudence." She knew that was not the name of the place, 
 but after thinking for a long time she finally found it; it 
 was "Purchase." Analysis revealed that she was a woman 
 who always had differences with her husband about her 
 expenses. One of her great interests in life was to purchase 
 things and she had to try very hard to live within her means, 
 for her husband was often unable to pay all the bills that she 
 ran up. Thus the moment she wanted to think of the name 
 "Purchase," there at once came to her consciousness a re- 
 pressed and painful element followed directly by the word 
 "Prudence" denoting, to be sure, a good New England virtue 
 which teaches one to live frugally. 
 
 Here is another case related to me by a friend of mine. 
 He recently met a young lady in a cafe with whom he was 
 evidently very much impressed; she was the type of woman 
 that he liked. He engaged in conversation with her and 
 when she left, they exchanged names. To her query 
 whether he will remember her name, he answered pleasantly 
 and positively: "Why, of course I will!" Her name hap- 
 pened to be "Raub." In speaking of her the next day to 
 his intimate friend, he referred to her quite unconsciously 
 as Miss Braun. When his friend betrayed utter ignorance 
 as to whom he meant, he paused, thought a while and soon 
 saw his mistake. As you see, "Braun" contains all the 
 letters of "Raub" and when I asked him who this "Braun"
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 85 
 
 was, he immediately told me of an important and interesting 
 character in the third volume of "Jean Christophe," who 
 made a powerful emotional appeal to him and was more or 
 less his ideal type of woman physically. Thus he uncon- 
 sciously identified Miss "Raub" with this particular woman. 
 But why should he change her name? In the first place, 
 it did not appeal to him; it suggests in German the 
 thought of stealing or plunder. But what is of greater 
 significance, he is a literary man and identified himself 
 with Romain Rolland as he has done on previous occa- 
 sions with other authors. Like Jean Christophe who had 
 that powerful love affair with Mrs. Braun, he too would 
 have an amour with this Miss "Raub" and straightway the 
 latter's name was changed. The whole mentation was 
 absolutely unconscious. The significant element to observe 
 here is the strong identification which played, also, so in- 
 teresting a part in the case of the minister who identified 
 himself with "Brill." 
 
 People very often take exception to this psychology and I 
 have had many interesting experiences with skeptics. I once 
 read a paper at the Academy of Medicine and there was a 
 well-known professor of academic psychology present who 
 took the opportunity to call me to account for the theory of 
 forgetting of names. He declared that while reading a 
 paper of mine on this subject it occurred to him that there 
 was a stenographer in his college whose name he could never 
 remember, and this, despite the fact that she has been there 
 for a number of years, and that he has occasion to talk to 
 her very often. And then he went on to state that it was 
 not at all a peculiar name, that it was . . . and here he 
 stopped, utterly unable to recall it. The audience smiled and 
 then he said : "You see I have the bad habit of forgetting 
 proper names. But I now have a mnemonic for this name, it 
 is ' Watertown.' " He then stated that to test our theory he
 
 86 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 resorted to the continuous association method a la Freud and 
 there came to his mind first, Waddling, which he at once 
 recognized as incorrect; the next associations were: "You 
 are making a pun, — she is indeed far from Waddling." 
 Here he interpolated the little remark that he always had the 
 bad habit of making puns of persons' names, but, he con- 
 tinued, he was glad to say that he was gradually growing out 
 of it. Then he thought of "Waddington" and after giving 
 about ten associations, he said: "You see from my 
 associations that there is nothing painful or disagreeable 
 connected with this name." When my turn came to answer, 
 I first made it clear that he did not associate long enough, 
 for it often takes us hours to analyze a name. Then 
 I asked his permission to take advantage of some remarks 
 that he made and to make some impromptu analysis. In 
 the first place, he informed us that he has the bad habit of 
 forgetting all proper names. Though it is well known that 
 we do not, as a rule, remember all names heard, nevertheless, 
 when we meet some striking or important personality with 
 whom we are impressed we almost invariably remember his 
 name. Hence when a person asserts that he forgets all 
 names, the only conclusion is that he finds no one in the 
 world of sufficient importance to play a role in his life. 
 This, I continued, was confirmed by the professor's remark 
 that he had the bad habit of making puns of proper names, 
 for here again we do this only with names of people for 
 whom we have little regard. It is commonly observed 
 among young boys and very intimate adults. Nevertheless 
 he showed good psychological insight as he made an effort 
 to overcome it, realizing that it was wrong. I am glad to 
 say that the professor did not take my explanation amiss. 
 
 We find also the element of the unpleasant and disagree- 
 able at the root of all deliberate changing of names. Note 
 some instances. There was a business firm in New York
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 87 
 
 that was called "Yvel Jewelry Co." After a little thought, 
 I realized that as its place of business was on Broadway, 
 "Yvel" was preferable to "Levy." And so, too, when you 
 see the name Honce and are quite sure that it is not Irish 
 or Scandinavian, reflect a little and you will find that it is 
 Cohen. There was a club here in the city that went under 
 the peculiar denomination of the "Sesrun;" it used to baffle 
 me before I became a Freudian ; now I read it backward and 
 know that it is the "Nurses' " club. It is said that the 
 Damrosch family in New York was originally "Rothkopf," 
 red-head, but as the latter was not quite euphonious, 
 it was translated into original classical Hebrew. During 
 the World War particularly, it was quite a common thing 
 to change foreign names and I consider such a practice 
 advisable and justified. It is undoubtedly highly desirable 
 that we enter as far as possible into complete harmony with 
 our environment, and I heartily disagree with the famous 
 judge who did not approve of changing the name Beneditsky 
 to Benedict, for instance. It seems to me that he showed a 
 distinct lack of psychological insight. It is quite remarkable 
 to observe that after going through this Americanization 
 process the new name still shows its old origin. We have 
 Hearst for Hirsch, Redstone for Rothstein, etc. The 
 motive in changing the name is undoubtedly to eradicate the 
 painful or disagreeable element that has become attached to 
 it. 
 
 It is interesting to note that among primitive people, 
 names are often changed on religious grounds. In one of 
 Ibanez's short stories, the author refers to the practice, com- 
 mon among Jews, of changing a sick child's name; the little 
 girl's name in the story is changed from Bona Hora to Luna ; 
 the thought is that the angel of death will thus be unable to 
 find it. As you see, it is the same mechanism; there is
 
 88 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 fundamentally something painful and disagreeable connected 
 with the name. 
 
 I have recently learned from a work by Capt. Bodeson 
 that the same practice is found also among some tribes in 
 Indo-China. When a child is born among some of the 
 savages in Indo-China that appears to be weak and sickly, 
 they call it by some such name as "Bat," "Distress" or 
 "Agony;" if it is fair and pudgy they may call it "Peace" 
 or "Gold" or "Flower." Whenever a child outlived one 
 or the other attribute they changed the name accordingly. 
 That is why historians sometimes find in documentary evi- 
 dence names like Typhus I., Scarlet II., Cholera I. and the 
 like. In brief, primitive people in history confirm our 
 views by evincing the same mechanism underlying the giving 
 and changing of names such as we find to-day in the 
 examples that we have already noted. 
 
 I have given you some illustrations of how the unconscious 
 mental activity manifests itself in the forgetting of names. 
 There are also other mistakes that we commonly make in 
 reading, writing and talking of no less interesting character, 
 and it may perhaps be advisable to dwell on them for a little 
 while so that you may thus get a little more insight into the 
 deeper significance of these unconscious psychic manifesta- 
 tions. 
 
 One of my patients related to me the following experience: 
 He knew a young lady from his earliest childhood and was 
 Lapses deeply in love with her. He never failed to in- 
 
 Beading- vite her, together with her mother, to all his 
 writing' college affairs. When he graduated, he took up 
 engineering at Cornell and upon completing his course of 
 studies, he naturally invited them to the commencement 
 exercises. He wrote a very warm letter in which he stated, 
 that he was very sorry that his fraternity had no chapter
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 89 
 
 house in Cornell and that he was therefore compelled to 
 provide outside quarters for them. He continued as fol- 
 lows : "I am sorry that I cannot offer you the luxurious 
 surroundings of a fraternity home, but I have engaged rooms 
 at a hotel for you." But instead of that he wrote: "I am 
 sorry that I cannot offer you the luxurious surroundings of 
 a maternity home." Without being aware of the error, he 
 mailed the letter. The girl's mother was highly indignant 
 over this seemingly brazen directness, and at once returned 
 it. He could not understand what occurred, but with the 
 help of his room-mate, to whom he showed the letter, the 
 mistake was quickly discovered. He then simply addressed 
 a little note to the girl in which he expressed his hope that 
 she did not take the matter in any ill spirit, but that she re- 
 garded it as merely a slip on his part. At any rate, mother 
 and daughter came to the commencement. He asked me to 
 tell him why he made the mistake and why the mother was 
 so wrought-up over it. What was uppermost on his mind 
 at the time of the incident was the fact that he was nearing 
 the goal of his ambition, i.e., that he would soon be inde- 
 pendent as an engineer and thus be in a position to marry. 
 When he wrote maternity, he unconsciously expressed his 
 deep regret that he was, as yet, not able to enter upon matri- 
 mony. The question why the mother reacted toward the 
 letter in the manner she did was, of course, a little more 
 difficult to explain. Though she realized very well that it 
 was essentially an error on his part, she nevertheless could 
 not ignore it for the simple reason that her mind was in a 
 state of what we may designate, "complex readiness," or as 
 it is called by Bleuler "complex Bereifschaft." It was in- 
 cumbent on her to appear innocent and deeply touched, 
 though she knew only too well what the young man meant. 
 But in this way she only betrayed herself the more. That 
 is how some apparently well-meaning people betray their
 
 go PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 real state of feeling; they disclose their vulnerable point in 
 their eagerness to conceal it. 
 
 I may perhaps make this a little clearer to you by an il- 
 lustration. One of my patients was having an affair with 
 a woman of questionable character and I urged him to drop 
 it; I maintained with good reason that she was not faithful 
 to him. He was loath, however, to do so, but intimated that 
 he thought I was right and that if he himself had proof of 
 it, he would have nothing more to do with her. One eve- 
 ning while they were both passing a certain hotel in New 
 York, she paused and asked him to tell her what sort of place 
 it was. He felt embarrassed, for it was difficult for him to 
 answer the question, as it was distinctly a place of ill-repute. 
 When he asked me to tell him its significance, I stated that, 
 in all probability, she knows all about the hotel and frequents 
 it herself and that in order to throw him off his guard she 
 was constrained to inquire about it so that she may thus 
 appear entirely ignorant on the matter. He was skeptical 
 and replied dryly: "That's all theory." A few weeks later 
 he had an appointment with her in the lobby of a New York 
 hotel ; after waiting for her a while, he was paged and in- 
 formed that she could not meet him, as she had company at 
 home whom she could leave under no circumstances. He 
 was disappointed. It was raining and dreary, and feeling 
 depressed he drifted into that same hotel about which she 
 questioned him. He took a few drinks, and as he was 
 standing there at the bar, chatting with the bar-tender, he 
 presently saw the elevator descending and who, to his great 
 surprise, should step out of it but his young lady and another 
 man. That, of course, closed the whole affair. So, as you 
 see, she had a complex readiness, and though there was not 
 the faintest possibility of his suspecting her when they passed 
 the hotel, she neverthless suspected herself, and perforce, in-
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 91 
 
 directly and unwittingly expressed the suspicion that was 
 on her mind. 
 
 Here is a mistake in talking related to me by one of my 
 patients. She was present at an evening dance that con- 
 tinued until about eleven p.m., when everybody, of course, 
 expected a more or less substantial repast. Instead, just 
 sandwiches and lemonade were served, and the disappoint- 
 ment was as keen as it was general. It was at the time that 
 Mr. Roosevelt was running for president; the guests were 
 discussing politics with the host, when one of them, an 
 ardent admirer of the Colonel, wished to say : "There is one 
 fine thing about Teddy, he always gives you a square deal." 
 Instead of that, he said: "There is one fine thing about 
 Teddy, he always gives you a square meal." All were em- 
 barrassed but understood each other quite well. 
 
 Slips of this nature occur all the time. I was speaking 
 once to a French patient, who had the annoying habit of 
 wandering from the subject, meandering, then stopping and 
 wasting a considerable amount of time. On one occasion I 
 wanted to tell her to "go on," "avant," but instead I said, 
 "good-by," "au revoir." - 
 
 I have found myself making similar mistakes at various 
 times. One of my patients who was very paranoid, really 
 insane, consulted me about her condition and I advised her 
 to go voluntarily into a hospital. She was quite willing to do 
 so, but claimed that she had some complication that made 
 such a step rather difficult. She had an apartment with some 
 friends who would not let her go. I became impatient and 
 said to her: "You are perfectly incompetent to take care 
 of your own affair." I wanted to say "competent." 
 
 Another one of my patients, a young lady, had a bad 
 habit of repeatedly using her powder puff in my office. I 
 got tired of it in time and remarked that it must be some 
 sort of symbolic action on her part. One day she came and
 
 92 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 I noticed that she did not have her powder puff with her; 
 she seemed to be rather dull and listless, and I remarked: 
 "You don't seem to have brought along your mental 
 powder." I meant to say, "your mental power." I really 
 thought she could do so very much better with the aid of her 
 powder puff. 
 
 Another young lady whom I treated was unusually liberal 
 and lavish in the use of cosmetics. I had advised her to drop 
 a certain young man ; following her meeting with him she 
 came for a consultation. I was naturally very much in- 
 terested to know what had occurred, and I asked at once: 
 "How did you make up?" I meant to ask: "How did you 
 make out?" 
 
 I advised a woman against an amour she carried on with 
 a certain man who lived in Baltimore. She promised me that 
 she would never see him again. One day she told me that she 
 was planning a little trip to Washington, and in the course 
 of the conversation remarked, "I am going to do this, if my 
 pleasant plan is successful." She wanted to say "present" 
 plan. "You are anticipating very great pleasure in seeing 
 again Mr. S." I added. "Oh, well, Doctor, you know I am 
 sick and tired of not seeing him," she replied. 
 
 I once wrote a prescription for an elderly lady. My re- 
 marks were: "I am giving you thirty pills; I want you to 
 take one three times a day after meals." Upon which she 
 said, "Doctor, don't give me big bills, because I can't swallow 
 them." Thereupon I asked her in a matter of fact way 
 whether she thought I was overcharging her. "Oh, yes, 
 Doctor, I really meant to talk to you about it ; I can't afford 
 to come to you," she replied. Of course she had no idea 
 why I put the question, and had I not taken her mistake as 
 an indication of her dissatisfaction with my charges, she 
 probably would have left me. 
 
 A woman was given a telephone number by her friend
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 93 
 
 who suggested that she write it down lest she forget it. "Oh, 
 no, I do not have to write it down, it is simple, number 1740 ; 
 I can easily remember it by saying, seventeen which I am 
 sorry I'm not, and forty which I regret very much I am." 
 She nevertheless made sure and jotted it down. The next 
 time she had occasion to call up her friend, she asked her 
 maid to get the number for her, but when she was connected 
 she found that she did not have the right person. She was 
 cross and fretful, but it was soon discovered that instead of 
 1740 she gave the number 1704. Here, as you see, her mis- 
 take revealed her aversion for the number forty, and, on that 
 account, therefore, she forgot it. 
 
 Mr. J. wished to call 648 Convent, but instead, called 648 
 Convict. The telephone operator, of course, insisted that 
 he had the wrong exchange. He was calling up one of the 
 commissioners of the state prison, in regard to a convict. 
 
 A friend of mine, a writer, in speaking about a certain 
 book he was reading, observed : "This is the best book I 
 have ever written." He wished to say : "This is the best 
 book that I have ever read." The inference is that it was 
 such an excellent book that he wished to be the author of it. 
 
 A woman who reproached herself for various sexual 
 transgressions asked me once whether I had seen a play 
 called the "Everlasting Madonna?" I told her that as far 
 as I knew there was no such play on the stage at that time. 
 "You mean, perhaps, 'The Eternal Magdalene,' " I said. 
 She saw her mistake at once. 
 
 A pregnant woman came into a department store and 
 wished to ask for a linen called "fruit of the loom." In- 
 stead, she asked for "fruit of the womb." 
 
 Here is an interesting lapse of memory related to me by a 
 friend: "During the trouble with the St. Louis and San 
 Francisco R. R., the bonds of the company fell in value, 
 and as I had a few of them I was very much disturbed.
 
 94 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 When I expressed my fears to an acquaintance, he explained 
 to me that I had no reason to worry about the 4% bonds but 
 that the 5% ones were now hardly worth half their value. 
 As I did not know which I had, I immediately hastened to 
 the safe deposit vault to find out. I requested the clerk to 
 open the outer locker of box 170 in which I kept my bonds 
 and other valuable papers. When he unlocked it, I in- 
 serted my own key into the box, but try as I would, I could 
 not open it; the key did not seem to fit. I called the clerk, 
 and after a number of unsuccessful attempts, he asked me 
 whether I was sure that my box number was 170. I was 
 very positive that the number was correct and was even 
 angry with him for questioning me, for I had the box for the 
 last ten years. I suggested that the key was perhaps bent; 
 and he tried it with the duplicate key, but with no success. 
 He finally decided to verify the number in the records of the 
 bank, and what was my surprise when he came back and told 
 me that it was 175 and not 170 !" As you see, he was afraid 
 that his bonds were the 5% issue; and as he had now good 
 reason to dislike the number five, he immediately pushed it 
 into the unconscious. 
 
 The following is a striking example of lapse in talking 
 that came to my attention recently: A very methodical 
 gentleman who was wont to make many Sunday afternoon 
 calls was quite assiduously attending to this pleasant function 
 one Sunday, when, as he was about to go home, he suddenly 
 recalled a lady friend, living not far from his own house, and 
 in his accustomed punctiliousness, he decided to pay her 
 his last visit. He expected to stay a few minutes, when to 
 his great dismay, the young lady, knowing quite well that he 
 was of a musical temperament, declared very enthusiastic- 
 ally: "I must play something for you." Without re- 
 monstrance, she at once made for the piano and began to play. 
 She played and played to the great despair of the gentleman
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 95 
 
 who was very anxious to get home to dress for dinner, for 
 one thing, and then, too, because he suffered from extreme 
 discomfort of a tense bladder. Finally, to his great relief, 
 the young lady stopped playing, remarking quite proudly: 
 "You know it took me a couple of weeks to memorize this." 
 In his wonted urbanity, he wished to say, "Yes, you played 
 it excellently and I can see that it is a very difficult piece to 
 play," but instead of that he said : "Yes, you played it ex- 
 cellently and I can see that it is a very difficult place to . . ." 
 Here the gentleman's state of mind, the discomfort of a full 
 bladder, the desire to get home betrayed itself in his lapsus 
 linguae. 
 
 In the first edition of my book "Psychoanalysis" there 
 was a mistake in spelling about which I knew nothing until 
 the second edition was published, when I received two letters 
 from different people asking me to account for the misspelled 
 word "omission." It was written with double "m," thus: 
 "ommission." When I looked into the matter I found that 
 the mistake was also present in the first edition, which ap- 
 peared in 191 2, and for which I was absolutely entirely re- 
 sponsible. The second edition, however, that came out a 
 few years later, was read by a professional proofreader who 
 as you know, is just an objective reading agent and so the 
 responsibility for the error lay entirely with him. Now I 
 thought to myself : "The stenographer, the compositor, the 
 proofreaders and myself have made the same mistake. 
 Why ?" To understand the reason for it, you must know in 
 what connection the word occurred. I quoted in the book 
 a mistake that was made in the so called "Wicked Bible," 
 printed in 1631, where instead of "Thou shalt not commit 
 adultery" it stated, "Thou shalt commit adultery." The 
 printer was fined and the Bible was confiscated ; I added that 
 the publisher had to pay a large sum of money for this 
 "ommission." The explanation is that as there was a fine
 
 96 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 in this case for an omission, my publisher gave me uncon- 
 sciously an additional "m" for good measure, so to say. It 
 was a purposeful, unconscious oversight on the part of every 
 one who read the episode. 
 
 A Hartford, Conn., paper a few years ago made the error 
 which gave rise to a great deal of animosity. It wished to say 
 about a certain congressman that "it is unfortunate that Mr. 
 H. G. is no longer a member of Congress." Instead it stated 
 that "it is fortunate that Mr. H. G. is no longer a member of 
 Congress." I have no doubt that the person who made the 
 mistake really thought that it was fortunate that Mr. H. G. 
 was no longer in Congress. 
 
 I reported a case of a newly married woman who, much to 
 her displeasure, was compelled to typewrite her husband's 
 manuscripts. Instead of going to church one Sunday morn- 
 ing, she had to sit there at the typewriter and her work was 
 full of errors like these, — parson for person, bridle for 
 bridal. You see what was on her mind. She simply gave 
 vent to her real thoughts: "I am a bride and instead of 
 taking it easy and going to church on Sunday morning, I am 
 harnessed and have to work here." 
 
 A doctor once asked me to render him a favor and intro- 
 duce a certain Mr. K. to him. I wrote him, saying: "I am 
 very glad to do so, as Mr. K. had considerable experience 
 inn this matter." He returned the letter with the request 
 that I explain to him why I wrote "inn" and not "in." Mr. 
 K. was very much addicted to alcohol and was always to be 
 found in a certain inn which I knew very well and which I 
 associated in my mind with a particular experience that oc- 
 curred there in connection with him. 
 
 Some years ago I received the following : "Dear Doctor : 
 After reading your valuable book 'Psychoanalysis' I beg to 
 enclose a cutting from the New York Times dated 30 April 
 191 6 containing the following passage which might interest
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 97 
 
 you: 'Declaring that international law is international 
 mortality, Judge Gray of Delaware expressed belief etc.' 
 Undoubtedly Judge Gray said morality, meaning that inter- 
 national law is intended for international welfare and happi- 
 ness ; however, the Times' reporter or printer unconsciously 
 manifested by his mistake that international law as it stands 
 to-day does not bring happiness and welfare to mankind 
 (morality) but destruction and misery (mortality). This 
 nicely bears out your contention that no mistake is utterly 
 unintentional." 
 
 Note the following little slip : A woman writing to an ac- 
 quaintance asking her for a loan of $300.00 said, among 
 other things : "I am rolling on you as a friend," instead of 
 "I am relying on you as a friend." 
 
 There are also numerous lapses in reading that we fre- 
 quently make. Let me give you an example. When on 
 board a ship I once met a gentleman who was bitterly in- 
 censed at doctors. We managed to get along very well to- 
 gether, but every time he had the opportunity to knock the 
 profession, he took full advantage of it. One day he im- 
 parted to me this bit of information with no little gusto: — 
 "I just read a name of a doctor and it is the most appro- 
 priate name I have ever met; it is Slayer." The name 
 strongly appealed to him. I asked him to show me the 
 magazine where he read it and I soon discovered that it was 
 "Salyer." In his complex readiness, he unconsciously dis- 
 torted the name to suit his own feelings. 
 
 Besides the lapses that we have discussed, there are also 
 symbolic actions which a person performs unconsciously and 
 automatically and which he considers entirely 
 accidental. Depending upon their mechanism symbolic 
 they are either simple or complicated and mani- 
 fest themselves in such unconscious mannerisms as playing
 
 98 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 with one's mustache, jingling of coins in one's pocket, 
 disarranging or arranging of one's clothes. These acts 
 always conceal a definite meaning, though it is a common 
 observation that when people are questioned about them, 
 they usually shrug their shoulders more or less indiffer- 
 ently and assure you that they were just playing. They 
 are instructive to the physician who often gathers from 
 them many valuable hints for the interpretation of symp- 
 toms ; to the student of human nature they are replete 
 with human interest, and writers like Dickens and Thack- 
 eray have described them quite at length and with con- 
 siderable insight. The common observation that "actions 
 speak louder than words" contains a deeper meaning than we 
 generally suppose. An individual has two languages in 
 which he expresses himself, one of which consists of these 
 little actions of which he is entirely unaware. I recall a 
 woman, for instance, who would invariably rub her hands 
 on her lap in a characteristic fashion whenever she came to 
 some matter that she did not wish to dwell on. In time 
 I learned in that way just what she wished to disclose, and 
 when I finished for her what she had begun to say, she would 
 add, "Of course you know it, that's why I did not want to 
 talk about it." As Freud has so aptly put it, "When the lips 
 are mute, the fingers talk." 
 
 Some of these symbolic actions are, of course, very much 
 more complex. A young lady, for instance, whom I have 
 known, was unfortunate enough not to have good looks. It 
 was one of the reasons why she was nervous. I tried hard 
 to console her, and reminded her of Dostoyevski's contention 
 that there is no woman that is ugly. She had no friends and 
 was morose and depressed. It was at the time of the 
 European war and one day she informed me that she had 
 decided to go to France. When I asked her what she was 
 going to do there, I learned that she was going to nurse
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 99 
 
 blind soldiers. You observe here the force of the uncon- 
 scious, though she had no idea, of course, of the deeper 
 significance of her decision. 
 
 One of my patients came to me one morning and I noticed 
 that he was very irritable. When I inquired what had oc- 
 curred, he at first declined to talk, but finally told me that he 
 had just quarrelled with his best friend because of the man- 
 ner in which the latter asked him to do something. In- 
 stead of "Please hang up my coat, John" his friend, he 
 went on to say, just said, "Hang up my coat," and he felt 
 that he should have been more polite. Now we must re- 
 member that whenever we find too much emotivity as- 
 sociated with an idea, there must of necessity be a good 
 reason for it. To discover it we must track the emotion to 
 its hidden sources. Analysis discovered that the patient 
 happened to read in his morning's paper about a man who 
 committed suicide by hanging himself ; that brought back to 
 his mind the skeleton of a similar experience in his *own 
 family, which I may say in passing, he did not disclose to me 
 in spite of the fact that he had been consulting me for a few 
 months. He was altogether unconscious of the family mis- 
 fortune when he was bid to hang up his friend's coat but the 
 word "hang" soon touched a sensitive spot in his psychic 
 life, it struck a complex, and there at once followed a flow 
 of repressed emotion. As you may see, the emotion at- 
 tached itself to altogether exogenous psychic material, it was 
 related to his friend's innocent remark only in respect of the 
 mere association of the word "hang." 
 
 Losing is another interesting symbolic action. I know I 
 will surprise a good many of you when I make the broad 
 statement that we lose nothing that we really want. It is 
 nevertheless true. No one likes to carry an umbrella or wear 
 rubbers, and that is why such things are so often lost. Some- 
 times you leave or forget to take an article in a certain
 
 ioo PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 place; this may mean one of the two things; either that 
 you would like to come back to the place, in which case the 
 article will serve as an excuse for your return, or that you 
 know that it is quite safe there. A young girl told me 
 recently that a young man asked her to keep his diploma for 
 him. I remarked that she would have to be careful, and no 
 mistake, the inevitable happened: the young man showed 
 symbolically exactly where he wished to be. A man con- 
 sulted me once, who carried a big, heavy overcoat A on hisiarm. 
 When he left my office, he forgot to take it and I called him 
 back. Upon returning it occurred to him to inquire about 
 something else he was anxious to know. When I was done, 
 he .left, again forgetting to take his coat, and when I now 
 called'him back for the second time, he exclaimed: "Damn 
 my father-in-law, I have to carry this coat to his office." 
 I have regularly quite a collection of these forgotten articles 
 in my office: just at present I have among other things, a 
 half dozen gloves, a number of pairs of rubbers, and the 
 lining from a man's hat. 
 
 Mr. M., a landscape gardener, lost some beautiful photo- 
 graphs while I was with him on a train. Some time later I 
 met the man who originally introduced me to him and I 
 commented on the loss. ''Oh, isn't that funny," he im- 
 mediately interposed, "he lost them when he was with me 
 also." I then had good reason to suspect that the photo- 
 graphs were not his own. The next time I saw Mr. M. 
 I asked him whether they were really his own genuine work 
 and he answered, "No, not exactly my work, because the 
 people don't allow me to take a photograph of the work I 
 had done on their estate, but they are almost the same as 
 mine." He was a conscientious man and continued to lose 
 them because he suffered from qualms of conscience. 
 
 Many times we lose things because we wish to make some 
 sort of sacrifice. I have reported the case of a young woman,
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 101 
 
 who, while going shopping one day, threw away a ten dollar 
 bill and only upon reaching the department store did she 
 realize what she had done. She was a very ardent church 
 member before she married, and was accustomed to donate 
 liberally to the church. When she married, her husband, 
 who was a bit tight, explained that inasmuch as times were 
 rather hard, she had better not make any further contribu- 
 tions for the present. The ten dollars was the sum she was 
 wont to give to the church in the past. When she threw it 
 away, she thought unconsciously, "He does not permit me 
 to donate it to the church, so that I'll just let some one find 
 it and keep it." 
 
 Losing keys has also a definite symbolic import. I now 
 recall the case of a woman at a western hotel who had the 
 reputation of perpetually losing the key to her room ; it 
 seemed that every time she took the key out of the door, she 
 lost it. On the other hand, she had the habit of not only 
 locking her room, but also of barring the door with a trunk 
 or a chiffonier so that it was thus locked the more safely. 
 How are we to explain this peculiar condition? Analysis 
 reveals that her losing the keys expresses her unconscious 
 desire to have her room open all the time. But if that is so, 
 why did she bar the door? Consciously, no doubt, she de- 
 sired to have the door closed, but unconsciously there was a 
 different set of forces operating. The motive that induced 
 her to lose the keys is of such a nature as to repel her in 
 conscious life. She was a young woman who had been 
 separated from her husband, and there is no doubt that she 
 was unconsciously disturbed by sex. 
 
 We may observe this same mechanism in the morbid fear 
 of burglars. You may perhaps know that a great many 
 women, as well as some men, are in mortal dread of burglars ; 
 particularly does this hold true of old maids. One of my 
 patients of this type was a woman who resided in one of the
 
 102 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 finest apartment houses in New York. Though she had a 
 room right between her father's and brother's, she was never- 
 theless always afraid ; it was a common practice for her, upon 
 retiring, to look very carefully under the bed to make sure 
 that no unwelcome stranger had perchance surreptitiously 
 entered. As I have already said previously, whenever we 
 see such marked emotivity, we must pause and ask ourselves 
 what is its source. This woman herself realized how absurd 
 was her fear. Indeed, when she came to me she said: 
 "Doctor, you don't have to tell me that it is impossible for 
 a burglar to get into my room, because I know that too well 
 myself, but despite all that, I am afraid." We know that 
 repressed desire is always at the root of a disproportionate 
 amount of fear; there is repressed libido at the basis of a 
 marked emotivity. Language has recognized this condition, 
 when it associates the word "panic" with the sensual God, 
 Pan. You can well imagine how a woman of her age, who 
 has been brought up very prudishly, will repress a sexual 
 thought or fancy the moment it enters her consciousness. 
 But the "cosmic" sex energy is there and it is forever striv- 
 ing to come to the surface, much as her whole being revolts 
 against it. The mind, under the circumstances, makes an 
 interesting detour ; the hidden wish to have a man illicitly in 
 the bed chamber expresses itself in the fear of an intruding 
 burglar. 
 
 In "collections" we see another common symbolic action. 
 I am not referring to the collections of books, paintings and 
 collections the like, engaged in by so called professional col- 
 lectors. I am interested at present only in those collections 
 that people generally regard as more or less peculiar. I 
 have known a man, for instance, who collected stick pins. 
 One woman collected pictures of pigs ; another candlesticks. 
 One lady had a few hundred of all kinds of pocketbooks
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 103 
 
 which she guarded most jealously; her daughter, who was a 
 patient of mine, informed me that when she wanted one, she 
 had to fight with her mother for weeks before she could 
 have it. A man came to my attention who collected those 
 collar buttons that one finds in newly laundered shirts; he 
 requested all his friends to save them for him; he would 
 most industriously assort them in boxes. One lady collected 
 stones, not from the wall of Jerusalem or Rome, to be sure, 
 but promiscuously, wherever she happened to stray; she 
 would assort and name them. When I saw the collection for 
 the first time I thought she was engaged in some definite 
 scientific pursuit, that perhaps the various stones repre- 
 sented different fossils. A German writer who investigated 
 the subject found that some people collected the most pe- 
 culiar things. The Countess Chavan Narischkin, for in- 
 stance, paid enormous sums for bed pans from Marie An- 
 toinette and Mme. Pompadour and other celebrities. A naval 
 officer collected uniform buttons ; a man collected corkscrews 
 for thirty years ; the obstetrician Braun collected pubic hair, 
 which he skilfully acquired while examining his patients. 
 
 The question naturally arises : "Why do people engage in 
 such things ?" I may perhaps best answer this by giving one 
 or two illustrations. At a meeting of a psychoanalytic 
 society in Zurich hospital, one of the members, an 
 old bachelor, once took occasion to reveal this interesting 
 bit of information : "Gentlemen, I want to tell you some- 
 thing quite strange. I take my vacation every year when 
 a certain fly is swarming; I want to say that I have 
 absolutely no interest in its scientific aspects. But I 
 love to catch the insect and for about two weeks or so I 
 gather it in great numbers and then throw it away. It 
 is my most pleasing pastime." On inquiry it was found 
 that the fly was of the "lobalia" species, designated in the 
 Swiss dialect as the "maiden." This innocent little occu-
 
 io 4 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 pation was thus a highly interesting symbolic action, which 
 revealed the unconscious thoughts and tendencies of this 
 man; how natural for this old bachelor to be thinking of 
 catching the "maiden" while he was on his vacation ! He 
 was a little astonished at this bit of analysis, but he confessed 
 that he could see no other explanation for his hobby. He 
 was quite frank. There surely was a reason why this man 
 did not marry ; and whatever were the inhibitions in his case, 
 he showed his real motives by occupying himself in this way. 
 When we take our vacation, consciously or unconsciously, 
 somewhere deep down in our heart we think of "catching" 
 maidens. It has been observed, and very aptly, that most en- 
 gagements take place in summer resorts, steamers and similar 
 places. 
 
 Miss T., a woman of considerable education and refine- 
 ment, was greatly interested in collecting works on mush- 
 rooms ; knowing that I read foreign languages, she asked me 
 on one occasion to recommend to her some books on the sub- 
 ject, particularly those with illustrated cuts from German, 
 French, or Italian sources. I brought her some and on in- 
 quiring whether she had a reading knowledge of those 
 languages, I learned that she was not at all acquainted with 
 them, but that her whole interest was centered in the illustra- 
 tions. I knew very little at the time about matters of this 
 nature, and her behavior in this regard seemed strange to me. 
 I learned, for instance, that on one occasion she paid as much 
 as six dollars for one German work. Some years after I 
 had become interested in Freudian psychology, I had the op- 
 portunity to meet Miss T. and I took occasion to find out 
 what was back of her interest in works on mushrooms. On 
 inquiring whether she still collected cuts on the subject, she 
 replied : "Oh, yes, I have quite a collection." I asked her to 
 tell me how she happened to begin her hobby, and she 
 merely replied: "Well, I really don't know how it came
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 105 
 
 about. I was on my vacation in the mountains ; one night I 
 could not fall asleep, hard as I tried. I arose very early the 
 next morning, and walking out on the lawn, I found some 
 mushrooms ; I took them to the cook, who fried them for me. 
 Since then I was interested in pictures of mushrooms." 
 
 What is the significance of Miss T.'s hobby ? In the first 
 place, we know that when a person suffers from insomnia, 
 it can be attributed to only one of two causes, either to some 
 organic disturbance, such as lung or heart trouble, that is, 
 to some definite organic pain, or to some strictly nervous 
 condition. Most of the nervous insomnias are always due to 
 a lack of emotional outlet; and people suffering from them 
 usually go to bed and fancy and daydream, and thus are 
 unable to fall asleep. As Miss T. appeared perfectly 
 healthy, I concluded that she must have experienced some 
 emotional disturbance that night. When I had explained to 
 her the motive that prompted me to inquire into the situation, 
 she gave me the following information: During her vaca- 
 tion there was a middle-aged man, who met her quite fre- 
 quently and with whom she would take long walks ; he ap- 
 parently paid her a great deal of attention. One evening 
 he was a bit intoxicated, and his behavior toward her was 
 rude and suggestive; she left him and returned to her room. 
 It was following that night that she began to take an in- 
 terest in the mushroom. It is not hard to surmise what 
 transpired. His suggestive remarks, disquieting and re- 
 pelling as they were, aroused sex fancies which she could not 
 shake off from her mind. Thoughts of this nature are in- 
 stinctive and persist always, no matter how hard we try to 
 banish them. Now if we remember that certain types of 
 mushrooms are scientifically designated as "phallus," which 
 means, penis, we may readily see what it was that uncon- 
 sciously attracted her attention to the mushroom; indeed, 
 the very object that so shocked her the evening before, now
 
 106 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 unconsciously acquired a tremendous significance and interest 
 for her. That is why she continued to collect the mush- 
 room ; there was absolutely no scientific reason why she 
 should take an interest in the work. 
 
 From the above considerations, it is clearly seen that such 
 collections serve as emotional outlets. This is borne out also 
 in the collections of stamps, birds' eggs, or nests, that we 
 find at the prepubescent age. It is then that the emotions of 
 sex and love become manifest and the child finds it difficult 
 to control them. It is the age when the child undergoes 
 marked psychological changes; powerfully latent forces be- 
 gin to manifest themselves in the psychic life. Youth, as we 
 all know, is then dissatisfied, it often revolts, leaving home 
 and kindred. Some children may become very religious ; 
 according to statistics from Evangelists, most conversions 
 take place at this age. The child becomes critical, he seems 
 to lose his old regard for his parents ; and it is perhaps with 
 no little degree of disappointment or even pain that he be- 
 gins to realize that after all mother and father are not as 
 omniscient and omnipotent as he supposed. What he really 
 craves for is expression of the sexual emotions in the form 
 of mating. The mating season begins at this time; but as 
 this gross manifestation of sex must be deferred in the 
 human being to a later period, and as we are taught to repress 
 it from the very beginning, this emotional unrest and sexual 
 craving merely expresses itself in a vague groping for some- 
 thing not altogether tangible or concrete. Owing to cultural 
 forces, the real aim is gradually distorted ; we have crying 
 spells among girls, and boys often take an interest in the 
 manifest part of sex. In the main, however, sex is re- 
 pressed ; they may, of course, occasionally consult the dic- 
 tionary about the meaning of certain significant words, or 
 read suggestive stories, or write little things that are lewd. 
 The desire for outward expression nevertheless remains;
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 107 
 
 and unconsciously the collection offers in some cases the 
 necessary emotional outlet. Collecting among children, 
 therefore, is to be encouraged, particularly if it furnishes 
 knowledge at the same time. 
 
 That the collecting mania is a reaction to an unconscious 
 need, to an inner feeling of voidness concerning some par- 
 ticular craving is best seen in the collections made by the 
 insane. It is common to see a lunatic strutting about with 
 all sorts of things bulging from his pockets. The patient has 
 to be searched from day to day lest he accumulate enormous 
 heaps of rubbish. When in the insane asylum, I would 
 sometimes secure a big bundle belonging to one of the in- 
 mates and begin to unravel it ; it would be wrapped in about 
 a hunded papers and when I reached the nucleus, I found 
 but a few pieces of glass or stone, in other words, nothing 
 but trash. They consider this refuse extremely valuable 
 and it is impossible to take it away from them in the waking 
 state, for they will resist tooth and nail. I found very soon 
 that such patients usually have delusions of poverty ; they 
 feel that they have lost everything. It may surprise you 
 to know that a goodly number of such patients are well-to- 
 do; you see that borne out particularly in private practice. 
 I knew an old wealthy woman whose children asked me to 
 examine her, because she would store away a lot of old news- 
 papers and rubbish in a safe ; indeed she would fill an extra 
 safe with them. On inquiring why she did that, she said, 
 "Well, every little thing counts nowadays." The mental 
 deterioration in such patients blurs their sense of value, and 
 like children who experience a vague craving for something, 
 they blindly follow the impulse. 
 
 I have found a good many people who collected on a large 
 scale until some marked change occurred in their existence. 
 I knew a man, a bachelor, for instance, who had a room filled 
 with long narrow vases which he collected for years. He felt
 
 108 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 that there was something very artistic in that particular form 
 of vases, and formulated various theories about their origin, 
 etc. He had over thirty such vases and every one of them 
 had a name. Most of them were labelled in his own very 
 small script as, Miss Essie, Miss Gwendolyn, and similar 
 fancy maiden names. When he showed them to me he 
 remarked: "You see I'm not as lonesome as you imagine. 
 I have plenty of girls with me." To my question he answered 
 that the name of one of the vases was Mrs. Gamma. 
 
 As this man was not analyzed by me I could not obtain 
 direct information about the origin of this collection and can 
 only surmise the meaning of it. He told me that he began 
 his collection hobby with violins and that he changed to vases 
 because, although violins are also elongated and graceful, 
 they did not lend themselves for his hobby as well as vases. 
 For one thing, he did not care to buy cheap violins and he 
 could not afford expensive ones. The naming of his vases 
 came to him as an inspiration. He once bought one and the 
 idea occurred to him that "she recalled Gwendolyn" and 
 henceforth he called it by that name, and gradually christened 
 all the others. I could not get any reason why he named 
 one Mrs. Gamma except that this particular vase looked to 
 him something like the Greek letter Gamma. As I said, this 
 man was an elderly bachelor of about forty-five, who had 
 nothing whatever to do with the fair sex. He lived with his 
 maiden aunt since his mother died, and when the former 
 was gathered to her ancestors he kept a bachelor's apart- 
 ment with a Japanese valet. Years later I was informed 
 by the same man who first introduced me to him, that the 
 vase collector suddenly married a young widow with two 
 children. It was following some operation during which he 
 Avas nursed by this widow that he decided to make her his 
 wife. "Does he still collect vases?" I inquired. The answer 
 which was sent to me a few weeks later read as follows:
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 109 
 
 "I paid a visit to Mr. Vase Collector and saw little of his 
 former hobby. He lives quite contentedly with his family 
 in a six room apartment. He told me that his family claims 
 all his spare time, that for the present at least he has no 
 interest in his former hobby." 
 
 I have had occasion to analyze some people of this type, 
 and I have concluded that such feverish collecting activities 
 represent what we call "fetichism," a condition in which an 
 inanimate object is endowed with certain marked emotional 
 feelings. It was essentially a fetich for the valiant knight, 
 wandering forth in quest of adventure, to take along with 
 him a handkerchief from the fair lady which he guarded 
 most religiously. 
 
 "Get me a handkerchief from her bosom, a 
 garter of my love." 
 
 The cases that I have in mind have, however, a much 
 greater emotional endowment than that of the valiant knight. 
 These fetichisms always have a symbolic significance. After 
 the first edition of my book "Psychoanalysis" appeared, I 
 received a letter from a gentleman who informed me that 
 when his old grandfather died it was found that he left 
 thousands of horseshoes that he collected, and that it was 
 quite a problem for his children to know what to do with 
 them. He stated that the man was one of the pioneers in 
 the state of Indiana where he was born, an individual abso- 
 lutely typical of that pioneer type; he had three wives and 
 when his last one died, he began to pay overtures to the 
 hired girls. The writer closed his letter by remarking that 
 he thought that every horseshoe represented a certain 
 amorous thought in the old man's mind. When you learn 
 the origin of the horseshoe, 1 that it was originally nothing 
 but the genitals of cows or camels which were stuck up over 
 
 1 Cf . A. A. Brill, Psychoanalysis, Its Theories and Applications. 
 3rd Edit. W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia.
 
 no PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the doors to avoid evil spirits, you will see that there is good 
 reason for believing that the correspondent's interpretation 
 is undoubtedly correct. We may posit, then, the general 
 rule that no person who is emotionally satisfied, whose work 
 sufficiently absorbs him and satisfies his emotional demands, 
 really collects to any marked degree, except, of course, if 
 he is a professional collector. 
 
 It is very difficult to convince people who are not ac- 
 quainted with the work we are doing, of the deeper psycho- 
 logical meaning of these collecting manias. There is nothing 
 arbitrary or fortuitous about these occupations; they have 
 a definite significance in each individual's life, and if you 
 once gain the person's confidence you will find that they are 
 symbolic of some profound quest, perhaps of some latent 
 erotic striving or wish, which by reason of certain inhibi- 
 tions, he was unable to realize. "Das Ewige weibliche zieht 
 uns immer an." They are unconscious symbolic actions of 
 which the average person is altogether unaware. 
 
 We have thus far dwelt on the psychopathology of every- 
 day life, and I have attempted to show you how such simple 
 or complex indicators are present in every-day conversation 
 and actions. Our fundamental principle is that nothing can 
 be hidden ; repressed thoughts forever strive to come to the 
 surface, and our real motives and wishes become manifest 
 in the "little unconscious ways" of every-day life. As Van 
 Dyke has so happily put it : "Men's little ways are usually 
 more interesting and often more instructive than their grand 
 manners. When they are off guard they frequently show to 
 better advantage than when they are on parade." 
 
 It may be asked, "What value is there in knowing these 
 psychic mechanisms?" I may perhaps best answer this 
 question by relating to you a story told to me by one of my 
 patients. An admirer of Freud, she brought up her children 
 to understand these unconscious psychic manifestations.
 
 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE ill 
 
 One summer her daughter, a girl of nineteen, invited a young 
 man to spend a few weeks at their country home. Every- 
 thing went well and everybody was happy; the young man 
 thought highly of his young friend, and Renee confided in 
 her mother. He was invited to come again the following 
 summer, but this time the daughter had also her classmate 
 with her and the young man was sufficiently indiscreet to 
 show attention to this new arrival. Very soon the mother 
 began to learn how much Renee hated him and how she 
 wished that he would leave, but nothing could be done, be- 
 cause the invitation was for a certain number of weeks. 
 Meanwhile he was fed on psychopathology of every-day life, 
 its nature and meaning, and he was soon well up in the new 
 study. One day he broke this news to Renee : "I just re- 
 ceived a message from the city and I have to go home." He 
 left, and when he reached the city, he addressed her a little 
 note, saying: "I didn't tell you the truth. I really didn't 
 have to go, but I noticed for a few days that you called me 
 Jack, and knowing that you hate Jack, and as your mistake 
 shows that you identified me with him, I thought you hated 
 me too. So it was better for me to leave." When the girl 
 had finished reading the little missive, it was as if lightning 
 had struck her from a clear sky. Running up to her mother 
 she exclaimed: "There you are with your Freud!" The 
 mother could not understand at first what had happened, but 
 upon learning the situation, she began to calm the girl. 
 "Now look here," she explained, "after all, you were very 
 anxious that he leave, for you said you hated him ; and now 
 that he is gone you have no reason to be angry." 
 
 Thus the daughter was deeply hurt merely because her 
 real state of feeling was discovered. The young man did 
 exactly what she wished him to, and she had no reason to 
 take offence. It seems to me that if we all regard matters 
 of this sort in their proper light we would be relieved of a
 
 ii2 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 great many distressing problems : It was good for the young 
 man to take the hint; they were really both benefited; he 
 felt more comfortable and she was freed of an unnecessary 
 burden. We should learn to regard our unconscious motives 
 as much a part of our true selves as our conscious acts ; 
 there is no reason why we should be ashamed or alarmed 
 when they are discovered. There is nothing shameful in the 
 fact that an ardent worker for the protection of cruelty to 
 animals has tortured chickens when she was a child, or that 
 a prison reformer had indulged in primitive acts in early 
 boyhood. Our civilization is a resultant of these contrary 
 forces in the individual. The good in us is only a reaction 
 to what was once bad and that had to be repressed. The 
 saint is a former sinner. We are all human and have our 
 shortcomings. "Homo sum; human* nihil mihil alienum 
 puto." And so I feel that we would all be happier, if we 
 would only be truthful at all times. But the point is that we 
 are for the most part not truthful to ourselves — and hence 
 these slips or mistakes which, in their own small way, have 
 the same relation to the unconscious as the symptom itself. 
 After all it was best for everybody concerned that the young 
 man understood the meaning of this identification and 
 terminated the unbearable situation by his departure.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 
 
 Some of the examples that I have given you of the psycho- 
 pathology of every-day life were distinctly mirth provoking 
 and could easily pass as witticisms. And as a matter of fact 
 the slip made at the evening dance, when one of the guests 
 remarked : "There is one fine thing about Teddy, he always 
 gives you a square weal," when he wished to say a "square 
 deal," called forth no little laughter from you. The guests 
 caught at once the significance of the slip, for 
 it expressed just what they were thinking about. Tech- 
 
 • 11 i 1 j- Juque 
 
 Here the unconscious not only showed the dis- of 
 appointed state of mind but the technique em- 
 ployed in expressing it rendered it also witty. In other 
 words, besides being a mere lapsus linguae, it was also a 
 witticism. The question now suggests itself: "How was 
 the wit produced in this case?" At first sight, one might 
 say that it was accomplished in a very simple way, — by 
 changing just one letter in the word deal and thus giving 
 an entirely different meaning to the whole phrase. If the 
 guests had been regaled with the appropriate meal, the slip 
 would not have been made, or if perchance it had been made, 
 it would have passed unnoticed. We may say, therefore, 
 that the wit was produced first, because the wording fitted 
 in with the situation, and secondly, because of the slight 
 changing in the word. The unconscious expression served as 
 a compensation for the disappointment of both the speaker 
 and the guests generally. Instead of feeling angry at the 
 
 113
 
 ii4 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 host for serving sandwiches and lemonade when something 
 more substantial was expected, they were now deriving much 
 pleasure from passing around the huge joke. If one should 
 ask what actually produced the pleasure in the witticism, we 
 would have to say that the guests were fascinated and amused 
 because through the slip, the speaker could openly voice the 
 sentiment of all, telling the host what everybody thought of 
 him, but could not say because of social proprieties. In 
 other words, one may say that every guest thought : "What 
 a stingy host," but no one could say it aloud. Through the 
 lapsus linguae, however, the host was actually told : "you are 
 stingy; you can afford to give us a generous meal, instead 
 you serve merely sandwiches and lemonade." But such an 
 open expression was impossible in that social gathering. We 
 may say, in brief, that a change of the letter "d" to "m" 
 allowed the guests to draw pleasure from otherwise for- 
 bidden sources. Because the truth was told where one 
 usually lies, every one was happy, except the one to whom 
 the truth was told, — the host. The particular example shows 
 that there is some connection between faulty actions and 
 wit in both technique and psychology. In order to under- 
 stand this connection better, it may be wise to go a bit deeper 
 into the nature and mechanism of wit. 
 
 In a paper that I wrote some years ago on "Wit" I men- 
 tioned the fact that in a short story I had read, one of the 
 characters, a "sport," speaks of the Christmas season as the 
 "Alcoholidays." Here two words are fused together be- 
 cause of a certain intimate connection between them, and the 
 resultant new word expresses a certain sense to the hearer 
 which he conceives as witty. We know that on holidays one 
 allows himself a greater degree of freedom than on ordinary 
 days, and in the past they were conducive to alcoholic in- 
 dulgence. And so when one hears the word "alcoholidays," 
 one smiles and knows what the person means to convey. The
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 115 
 
 word represents a fusion, a condensation of ideas as well as 
 words. Instead of saying "On holidays one gets drunk and 
 feels well," the speaker fused the whole thought into one 
 word, — "alcoholidays." 
 
 Let us take another example of condensation as it is seen 
 in wit. In his work "Lothair" Disraeli said, "When a man 
 falls into anecdotage, it is time for him to retire." We may 
 readily see that the fused word is made up of "anecdote" 
 and "dotage." We know that in old age people resort to 
 anecdotes. This is borne out among sane and insane alike. 
 In senile dementia, one of the most important diagnostic 
 points is a lack of impressibility for recent impressions and 
 a continual return to the past. The patient does not remem- 
 ber what he had for breakfast a half hour after, he goes out 
 to do an errand and forgets what it is. But he remembers 
 things of the remote past. He usually begins, "When I was 
 in the Civil War. . . ." or "You should have seen the girls 
 of fifty years ago. . . .," etc. Normal aged people show 
 the same mechanism, but of course not to so marked a degree. 
 When an individual resorts to anecdotes it means that he 
 no longer feels himself a part of the present, that he is in 
 dotage and hence may as well retire. And as a matter of 
 fact he has retired, psychiatrically speaking. The word 
 "anecdotage" is therefore a condensation of a number of 
 thoughts as well as of words. 
 
 Some one said : "All men are homeless, but some men are 
 home less than others." Here the word "homeless" is not 
 a new word, but if you break it up into two parts you get 
 two distinct words expressing an entirely different idea. 
 The wit here is altogether due to the technique. 
 
 Another illustration is the following: The man who says 
 the present styles are shocking is always willing to be a 
 shock-absorber. 
 
 Once I ran on to this remark : "Some lawyers earn their
 
 n6 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 bread by the szveat of their brow-beating." Here again, we 
 see the condensation. The well-known Biblical phrase, "To 
 earn thy bread by the sweat of the brow," is modified here, 
 the fusion of the two words giving an altogether different 
 meaning to the expression, for one at once recalls a well 
 known characteristic of many lawyers. 
 
 In the category of condensation of words we may place 
 also the following: "Not being favored by Dame Luck, he 
 became a Lame Duck." This form of wit is what the Ger- 
 mans call "Schiittel-rheim," — shuffling rhyme. Here is an- 
 other example of it: It was Mr. Smith's first Sunday as 
 usher in church. He was all flustered, and turning to a lady 
 who entered, he said : "This way, lady, I will sew you into a 
 sheet." A very fine example of this type of wit is seen in 
 the case of that punctilious gentleman who made the indeli- 
 cate slip we noted on a previous occasion. 
 
 Just as we have condensation of words, so we have con- 
 densation of thoughts. A very good example of what I mean 
 is an army witticism that I have cited in one of my papers. 
 "A corporal, during drill, shouts to the recruits: 'Keep it 
 up, boys, courage and perseverance bring everything. The 
 egg of Columbus was not laid in a day.' Here you see 
 there were two thoughts, two sayings fused together : 'Rome 
 was not built in a day,' and the anecdote of the egg of Co- 
 lumbus. What the corporal meant to say was, all tibat you 
 boys need is practice ; it is as simple as it was for Columbus 
 to stand the egg on end; don't be discouraged, Rome was 
 not built in a day. He fused these two ideas, however, and 
 thus produced the substitutive formation, 'the egg of Co- 
 lumbus was not lafd in a day,' which on account of its 
 absurdity and incongruity carries the wit of the jest." 
 
 We may also produce condensation of thought by using 
 the same expression or the same words in different meanings. 
 For example: The question is asked: "Why was Goliath
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 117 
 
 surprised when David struck him with a stone?" The answer 
 is : "Because such a thing never entered his head before!" 
 Here the witticism is entirely due to the fact that the ex- 
 pression "entering one's head" is used in an entirely different 
 sense from the idea of a "stone entering one's head." If the 
 answer had been, "Because such a thing never pierced his 
 head before," there would have been no witticism. It is 
 because the word "enter" was used in the figurative sense, as 
 denoting cognizance or awareness, that the joke was produced. 
 The mechanism of condensation noted above plays an 
 extremely important part, not only in wit but also in dreams. 
 In the dream, words, pictures, ideas and situations are all 
 subject to the process of condensation. Let me give you 
 an example. Miss R. dreamed "that she saw a woman, whom 
 she later identified as her sister-in-law, standing on a sort 
 of platform, surrounded by a multitude of people who were 
 apparently applauding her. She was brushing her clothes, 
 but instead of brushing them down, she brushed them up." 
 The dream was a condensation of the following thoughts: 
 "My sister-in-law always likes to be in the limelight; she 
 always wants an audience. She is very coarse, and doesn't 
 know how to act delicately in polite society." Brushing one's 
 clothes with a brush upwards is sometimes extremely im- 
 polite and coarse, and describes very well the whole situation. 
 
 Let us now turn to another form of the technique of wit. 
 By way of illustration, take this witticism: 
 
 Contributor : "You sit down on every joke I write." 
 
 Editor : "Well, I wouldn't if there was any point to them." 
 — (The Christian Advocate, N. Y.) 
 
 The technique lies here seemingly in the double meaning 
 of the phrase "to sit down," which is used first, metaphor- 
 ically, meaning to reject, and in the second, it is used in the 
 actual sense of "sitting down." If, instead of using "to sit
 
 n8 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 down," one would say, "to reject," just as in the preceding 
 witticism, if it were said "to pierce" instead of "to enter," 
 there would be no wit. When one examines the witticism 
 more closely, however, one finds that the reduction has not 
 been applied to the right place. The jest does not lie in the 
 contributor's statement, but rather in the editor's rejoinder, 
 that is, in the answer, "Well, I wouldn't if there was any 
 point to them." The editor takes advantage of the double 
 meaning of "to sit down" and produces wit by ignoring the 
 empty sense and using it literally. His own use of the word 
 in the idiomatic sense furnishes the wit. For if his answer 
 had been, "Well, I wouldn't if there was any wit to them," 
 there would have been no joke. 
 
 In order to understand better the mechanism illustrated 
 by the above jokes, let us take another example: 
 
 A Favored Mortal 
 
 The Mendicant: — "Could you help a poor homeless guy 
 that ain't got a dollar nor a friend?" 
 
 Old Multirox : — "Not a friend? No one to tell you 
 disagreeable things for your own good? No one 
 ment to touch you for a dollar? Man, you don't know 
 
 your luck." — (Judge, 1921.) 
 
 How is the wit produced here? You see Old Multirox 
 displaces the accent from the mendicant's request for ma- 
 terial help to something entirely different, when he says, 
 "not a friend," etc. He deliberately ignores the first part of 
 the mendicant's recital asking for money, and dwells on the 
 last part of the sentence which the beggar gave as a secondary 
 reason for asking him for help. He thus tries to give the 
 beggar the impression that far from being badly off because 
 he has not a friend, he is to be congratulated for being so 
 fortunate. Whatever he said about a friend may be gen- 
 erally true of some friends but that was beside the question 
 here. The beggar asked for money and cared little about a
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 119 
 
 lecture on the badness of having friends. In other words, 
 the supposed benefactor displaced the accent from the main 
 issue, the request for money, to the explanatory, though 
 unimportant part of the whole thing. 
 
 In both of the above examples the technique lies in the 
 displacement of the psychic accent; this is especially marked 
 in the last joke: "Not a friend?" The supposed benefactor 
 answers as if the request were for a friend, and the element 
 of charity does not appear at all. 
 
 Take another example : A man loses his gold-headed cane. 
 The next morning he recalls that he must have left it in a 
 cafe, but it occurs to him that he visited four cafes during 
 that evening. He inquires in one of them: "Waiter, did 
 I leave a cane here?" "No cane was found," was the 
 answer. He then calls at the next restaurant, asks the same 
 question but receives the same answer. He visits the third 
 place and again asks: "Alphonse, have I left my cane here 
 yesterday?" "No, monsieur, nothing was found." When 
 he reaches the fourth restaurant he is pretty well discouraged. 
 He asks the same question but this time the waiter replies: 
 "Yes, we have it." He was very pleased and said: "I shall 
 never go to the other cafes again: this is the only place I will 
 visit hereafter." Where does the wit lie ? Here again, the 
 man displaces the whole emotional accent from the important 
 point to something very trivial. He is keenly disappointed 
 in those cafes where the cane was not found, forgetting that 
 it was no fault of theirs that he did not leave it there. He 
 behaves as if the cane had been in all the four places and all, 
 but the last, refused to return it to him. In other words, 
 he assumes that there are four canes, and that he lost three. 
 
 The above joke illustrates also another mechanism which 
 we call "automatism." A person falls into a certain trend
 
 120 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 of thought, gets accustomed to it and follows it automatically, 
 regardless of whether it has logic or not. The following 
 examples will serve as illustration : 
 
 A dentist had to crawl under his auto in order to make 
 some adjustment in the machinery. Applying the monkey 
 wrench to it he said soothingly: "Now this is going to hurt 
 just a little." 
 
 The father of the bride, an ^undertaker, was busily en- 
 gaged in getting everything ready for the departure of the 
 newlyweds for their honeymoon. At last all 
 
 Automa- 
 tism 
 Wit 
 
 the baggage zvas in the car and after taking 
 
 affectionate leave of his son-in-law and daughter 
 he slammed the door of the car and cried to the driver, 
 "Cypress Hills" (one of our great cemeteries). 
 
 In both examples one observes the automatism of thought. 
 The dentist could not forget his profession whenever he 
 applied any instrument to something. His assuring formula 
 became so automatic that he used it even in inanimate objects, 
 while the undertaker could only think of the removal of a 
 corpse when he slammed the door of the vehicle. 
 
 This leads us to another form of wit which is well illus- 
 trated in the following example: 
 
 "Why were they married?" 
 
 "Because they fell in love." 
 
 "And why were they divorced?" 
 
 "Because they fell in love." 
 
 The witticism may recall "the manifold application of the 
 same material": but in this case, the double meaning plays 
 no part. The important factor in this example depends on 
 the formation of a new and unexpected identity, and on the 
 production of ideas and definitions related to each other and 
 to a common third. "And why were they divorced?" It is 
 a unification. Unification is also the basis of the quick
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 121 
 
 repartee in wit, for ready repartee consists in using the 
 defense for aggression, and in "turning the tables" or in 
 "paying with the same coin"; that is, the repartee consists 
 in establishing an unexpected identity between attack and 
 counter-attack. It is also well illustrated in the following 
 examples : 
 
 A lawyer of small stature came into a court to look after 
 his client's interests. His opponent, not knowing him, asked 
 him what he wanted, and on being told who he was, jokingly 
 remarked: "What? Such a little lawyer? Why I could 
 put you in my pocket!" "You could," tranquilly responded 
 the former, "but then you would have more brains in your 
 pocket than in your head." — Here there is a definite estab- 
 lishment of identification, of pocket and smallness of stature, 
 to a definite third, — "brains," the repartee thus being estab- 
 lished. 
 
 Likewise there is a story told about Augustus Caesar who, 
 travelling in the province, met a man who resembled him 
 very much. He turned to him and said: "Tell 
 
 . . Unification 
 
 me, was your mother ever m the service of the or Repartee 
 emperor at Rome?" The man replied: "Not 
 my mother, but my father!" This is as clever a retort as 
 one could give to a person whom one cannot possibly insult, 
 and sums up the situation most admirably. 
 
 Other examples of unification wit or repartee are as 
 follows : 
 
 After a poor recitation in English, a student suffering 
 from a stigmata of obesity is rebuked thus by the professor : 
 "You are better fed than learned." To which the student 
 retorts: "Yes, you teach me, and I feed myself." 
 
 He : "Yes, a married man lives a dog's life." 
 She: "Yes, barks all day and growls all night." 
 
 — Simplicissimus.
 
 122 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 There is another form of the technique of wit that we do 
 not meet with very often, which illustrates a mechanism 
 Nonsense often observed in unconscious mentation. Here 
 wit is an example: 
 
 The first cinder speaking to the second: "Why so angry f" 
 The second answers : "1 have been wasting time in a glass 
 eye." 
 
 The witticism is a fine example of animism, by which is 
 meant, attributing an animate quality or condition to an 
 inanimate object. 1 It is a mechanism which is found also 
 in dreams. The wit arises here from the naivity of the 
 conception ; every one knows what it means to have a cinder 
 in the eye, but when one hears that it is a glass eye, one im- 
 mediately sees the comedy instead of the tragedy of the situa- 
 tion. No one would laugh if the word "glass" would have 
 been omitted; in fact the answer would have been mal a 
 propos, because when a cinder gets in the eye it is not a 
 question of wasting time. The wit is produced altogether 
 by the fact that a situation has been created which belongs 
 to the naive, to what we may regard as nonsensical. 
 
 Another form of wit we may designate as elliptical; the 
 figure "ellipsis" as used in rhetoric, denoting omission. The 
 Ellipsis question is asked: "Do you think ignorance is 
 wit bliss ?" And the answer is: "Well, you seem to 
 
 be happy!" As is seen, at least one thought is left out be- 
 tween the question and the answer. 
 
 We find this same form of wit in the following example : 
 Husband to his wife : "// one of us should die I'll live 
 in New York." The wit is produced by ignoring the pos- 
 sibility of the first part of the statement and acting as if 
 there was no question that his wife will die first, thus re- 
 vealing what was omitted in conscious thought. 
 
 1 Cf . the conception of talking trees in Greek mythology.
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 123 
 
 There are also witticisms which express other mechanisms 
 than those thus far considered. Take, for instance, the 
 following : 
 
 The Mark of Perfection 
 
 Dyer : "How do you like your new car?" 
 
 Ryer: "Fine! It won't do a thing the salesman claimed 
 it would." Here the wit is produced by uttering the exact 
 opposite of what might be expected. One would 
 
 .,_ Repr9senta- 
 
 expect such an answer as this : "Very well tion through 
 
 . , , . , . . , « . the Opposite 
 
 indeed, it does everything that the salesman 
 assured us it would do," but the average automobile owner's 
 faith in the auto salesman is rudely bumped when he finds 
 that the car does not run at least twenty miles on a gallon 
 of gas, that this or that part does get out of order or broken, 
 etc., etc. The wit-provoking element is the universal knowl- 
 edge of the very exaggerating proclivities of salesmen which 
 customers always take into consideration. The technique 
 is representation through the opposite. 
 
 The following example represents another technique of 
 wit which we designate as sense in nonsense: 
 
 Sometime after losing her grandfather little Ethel asked 
 her mother if she could play the piano: 
 
 "No, dear; don't you know that we are in mourning f" her 
 mother replied. 
 
 "Well," insisted the child, "I don't think it would be wicked 
 if I only played on the black keys." — (Judge, 1921.) 
 
 The child's answer is witty because it is so senseless and 
 naive, but as a matter of fact it is made nonsensical only to 
 express a senseful reproach to her mother for her sense in 
 way of following this conventional hypocrisy of nonsense 
 modern life, the absurd idea of wearing black to express 
 one's sorrow over the death of near relatives. What a child 
 usually observes is that in reality there is very little mortifi- 
 cation over the death of a grandparent, indeed in most cases
 
 i2 4 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 there is a sigh of relief when dear grandpa is gone, 
 because one needs the money and one has been terribly 
 annoyed by his protracted illness, etc. A child always ob- 
 serves much more than parents realize and soon notices that 
 mourning does not deprive the mourner of anything that 
 he really wants, but it is used as an excuse for refusing 
 invitations from people one dislikes, etc. In brief, the child's 
 thoughts could be reduced as follows : "As far as I see you 
 haven't given up a single pleasure over the death of grandpa, 
 all you do is wear black. Why prohibit me from playing? 
 I suppose I could play if the keys were black." 
 
 From the mechanism of sense in nonsense we will proceed 
 to "outdoing" wit, of which the following is an example : 
 
 Mrs. A. to Mrs. B. : "Can you recommend your former 
 servant, does she understand everything well?" "Oh, yes, 
 ouiaofais s ^ ie understands everything even better," an- 
 Wit swered Mrs. B. What produces the witticism 
 
 here is that she recommends her servant so very highly that 
 she expresses the very opposite ! In other words, the servant 
 does not understand anything. ... It is the mechanism of 
 representing by the opposite, or the mechanism of outdoing. 
 
 Take, for instance, this excellent joke: A Jew and a 
 Greek are in a cafe, enjoying their coffee and talking. Says 
 the Greek: "You knozv, Jacob, the old Greeks were the 
 most wonderful people that ever lived. They knew every- 
 thing. Just recently they were digging around the Acropolis 
 in Athens and they found wires, which shows that the old 
 Greeks used telegraphy." Then the Jew: "That's alright, 
 but I tell you the Jews were the most wonderful people. 
 They recently dug around the walls of Jerusalem and did not 
 find anything, which shows that the old Jews used wireless 
 telegraphy!" This is a very fine example of outdoing wit ; at 
 the same time, as you see, it also tries to represent something
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 125 
 
 by the very opposite : — because nothing was found, therefore 
 the supposed condition! 
 
 Very often wit is produced by the expression of something 
 similar and cognate, as given in this example from Heinrich 
 Heine : 
 
 "This woman resembles Venus de Milo in many points: 
 Like Venus de Milo she is extraordinarily old. Like Venus 
 she has no teeth; like Venus she has white spots Wit through 
 on the yellow surface of her body." In other similarity 
 words, he begins with the idea that she must be very beauti- 
 ful, and compares her with Venus, but he selects certain 
 points of similarity that show just the opposite. Yet all the 
 points that the poet mentions are perfectly true. He thus 
 depicts something very ugly by comparing it with something 
 very beautiful. 
 
 We have described thus far, briefly of course, the most 
 common forms of the technique of wit. As we have pointed 
 out above, the process of condensation which we have noted 
 in the technique of wit appears also in the formation of 
 dreams. So, too, displacement, absurdity, indirect repre- 
 sentation and expression through the opposite — all these are 
 found also in the technique of dreams. It is the process of 
 displacement that renders the dream so incomprehensible to 
 us and thus prevents us from seeing in the dream only a 
 continuation of our waking thoughts. The existence of the 
 naive and absurd in the dream is the reason why people 
 generally think that there is a deterioration of the psychic 
 activities in the dream. We find also in the dream expression 
 through the opposite, indirect expressions and other mechan- 
 isms found in wit. We thus see how much alike in technique 
 are the two psychic phenomena. 
 
 When we inquire into wit, as concerns its tendencies, we 
 find that it falls into two classes, purposeful wit, or that
 
 126 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 which shows definite aims, and harmless wit, or that which 
 shows no particular aim. As an example of harmless wit, 
 The Tenaen- ta ^e the following : Smith asks Brown : "Have 
 ciesofwit y 0U seen t j lc new Murillo?" "No, I have not 
 gone to the Zoological Garden for a year." This is only 
 understood, when we know that Murillo was a great Spanish 
 painter. The name, however, sounds like that of some sort 
 of animal. It is only purposeful wit that is apt to be met 
 with resistance from hearers or persons concerned. A harm- 
 less joke may be produced by witty words or witty thoughts, 
 and any of the techniques described may serve to produce a 
 purposeful witticism. Whenever wit is not harmless, that 
 is, when it is purposeful and shows a definite aim, it has 
 two tendencies: it is either hostile, aggressive, — or it is ob- 
 scene, sexual. 
 
 Take, for instance, the smutty joke. We may define it as 
 a joke which brings into prominence some sexual facts or 
 relations through speech. Such jokes are constantly read 
 and heard in theatres and at the finest social gatherings. A 
 typical example is the following: 
 
 Mrs. Chatterton: "There's D'Auber's shocking picture, 
 'Love in Arcady! They say ifs a portrait of you. You 
 don't mean to tell me you posed for it?" 
 
 Mrs. Proudfit: "Certainly not! He must have painted 
 it from memory." — {Judge, 1921.) 
 
 Of course, rendering prominent something sexual, does 
 not necessarily produce wit. A lecture on the anatomy of 
 the sexual organs or on the physiology of reproduction need 
 not necessarily provoke laughter. The smutty joke must 
 fulfill certain conditions: In the first place, it must be 
 directed toward a certain person who stimulates one sexually, 
 and who becomes aware of the speaker's excitement by lis- 
 tening to the smutty joke, and in turn becomes sexually 
 excited. Very often, instead of becoming sexually excited
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 127 
 
 one reacts with embarrassment or shame, which only shows 
 a reaction against the excitement and thus signifies an 
 admission of the same. The smutty joke was originally 
 directed against the woman, a fact amply borne out in the 
 histories of smutty wit. That nowadays, however, smutty 
 jokes are mostly told among men, is only due to the fact that 
 civilization and culture have rendered the original situation 
 impossible of realization; this is counterbalanced, however, 
 by the theatres and comic periodicals. The smutty joke is 
 only an exhibition directed against a person to whom one is 
 not sexually indifferent. Through the utterance of obscene 
 words, the person attacked is excited to picture the parts of 
 the body of the person in question, and is shown that the 
 aggressor pictures the same thing. In other words, when a 
 man seeks out a woman and tells her a sexual joke, it is 
 because she stimulates him sexually, and he hopes by telling 
 her the joke to stimulate her sexually, in turn. She may 
 either laugh at it, which shows that she enjoys the situation, 
 or become embarrassed, which to the person who makes the 
 joke, means the same thing. The following is a good example 
 of this kind of wit: 
 
 Rub : — "A woman has just been arrested for carrying 
 concealed weapons." 
 
 Dub -.—"Where?"— {Judge, 1921.) 
 
 There is no doubt that originally the motive of the sug- 
 gestive risque joke was exhibitionism, — the pleasure of 
 seeing the sexual displayed. As Freud has pointed out, one 
 of the primitive components of our libido is the desire to 
 see the sexual exposed. All animals exhibit during the 
 mating season. And among human beings, it is a common 
 observation that the greatest amount of showing-off on the 
 part of men is done in the presence of women. There prob- 
 ably would be no football games, or other college exhibitions, 
 were it not for the fact that the participator expects to see
 
 128 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 at the event his best girl, or perhaps his sister or mother. 
 This form of showing off is nothing but a sublimated activity 
 of the infantile exhibitionism. The desire to see the sexual 
 is probably only a substitute for the desire to touch the 
 sexual which may be considered the primary pleasure. The 
 libido for looking and touching is found in every person. 
 We all know that touching the skin of the sexual object 
 causes pleasure and excitement. The same holds true of 
 looking which is analogous to touching. 
 
 Sexual excitement is frequently awakened by optical im- 
 pressions, and selection taking account of this fact makes the 
 sexual object a thing of beauty. The fact that one animal 
 is preferred to another is undoubtedly due to only one 
 thing, — that the one looks better to the mate than the other. 
 Of course, originally everything was done very frankly, and 
 touching and looking were perfectly normal mechanisms. 
 The introduction of clothing to cover the body, has only 
 aroused a much greater sexual curiosity, and the individual 
 constantly strives to supplement the sexual object by uncov- 
 ering the hidden parts through his imagination. Looking and 
 touching are intermediary sexual aims, that is, they are not 
 ends in themselves, they merely lead to mating ; they conduce 
 to the selection of the person who pleases the individual more 
 than any other person. If one lingers very much at one of 
 the intermediary stages, that is, if one is not using the 
 partial component for the selection of a mate, but makes it his 
 primary aim, he suffers from an abnormal sexual tendency 
 which we regard as a perversion. That is to say, such a 
 person fixes on the looking as the main sexual pleasure 
 instead of directing it toward the normal sexual aim. He is 
 what is designated as a voyeur or a "peeper." The desire to 
 exhibit is readily seen in children and if not subjected to the 
 normal sexual repression, it develops into a desire for ex- 
 hibition, a common perversion in some grown up men.
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 129 
 
 It is such partial components as exhibitionism and touch- 
 ing, which, when repressed, still leave a certain amount of 
 libido ungratified that men try to supplement through speech. 
 By arousing a picture of his type in the woman the man 
 leads her to merge into a corresponding excitement and the 
 reaction of laughter or embarrassment thus produced in her 
 gives him a certain amount of pleasure. We know from 
 everyday experience that though the joke may have nothing 
 in common with smut, the fact that it provokes laughter in 
 others gives the person who made it a marked degree of 
 pleasure. That is why we always seek an audience to tell 
 a joke. The speech of courtship is certainly not regularly 
 the smutty joke, but may very often pass over into one. We 
 may say, then, that sexual aggression when inhibited ex- 
 presses itself usually in speech. 
 
 Another factor in determining the smutty wit is the un- 
 yieldingness of the woman. Nature has purposely designed 
 that the woman be passive in that regard, for it was intended 
 that only the fittest and strongest should mate and survive. 
 It is necessary for the woman not to yield too readily, for 
 in this way she is able to have many men court her. Thus 
 only the most persistent and strongest would finally be 
 chosen. If the female of the species should yield immediately 
 she would mate with any weakling, and a rather poor 
 progeny would be the outcome. So that among human 
 beings, as among animals, the woman, though she may be in 
 love with the man, will always hold back ; she does not do 
 this deliberately, as you might think; it is quite an uncon- 
 scious reaction. The only point is that sometimes women, 
 particularly of a neurotic type, hold back too long and the 
 man gets tired and finds another woman. I have many cases 
 of women who suffered nervous breakdowns when the man 
 left them after about two years of courtship. The ideal case 
 for such resistance on the part of the woman usually results
 
 i 3 o PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 from the presence of another man whose presence excludes 
 the immediate yielding of the woman. 
 
 We may say then that the tendency wit requires three 
 persons : first, the person . who makes the wit ; second, the 
 person who is taken as the object of the hostile or sexual 
 aggression ; and third, the person in whom the purpose of the 
 with to produce pleasure is fulfilled. The way this is done 
 may be described somewhat as follows : Just as soon as the 
 first person meets with resistance on the part of the woman 
 to the gratification of his libidinous impulse, he at once 
 assumes a hostile attitude toward her and turns to the third 
 person as to a sort of confederate. Through the obscene 
 speech the first person is able to expose the woman before 
 the third person who as a passive hearer derives pleasure 
 from the easy gratification of his own libido. The wit 
 enables, therefore, the first person to gratify his original 
 lewd or hostile craving, despite the hindrance which stands 
 in the way; it enables him to draw pleasure from an other- 
 wise forbidden source. What the hindrance is is not hard 
 to see. It is nothing less than the higher degree of social 
 propriety which makes it hard for the woman, and to a less 
 degree, for the man, to countenance the bare sexual. With 
 the advance of civilization, the force of repression became 
 correspondingly stronger and what was once conceived as 
 pleasurable now appears as inacceptable, and is rejected by 
 all the psychic forces. But the human psyche finds absolute 
 renunciation difficult and it is through the medium of the 
 tendency wit that we are still able to enjoy many of those 
 primary pleasures that civilization and the higher education 
 have found inacceptable. We may say accordingly that the 
 obscene delicate witticism heard among people of culture and 
 refinement and the coarse obscene joke of the ill-bred both 
 have the same source of pleasure. The only difference is that 
 owing to cultural development, the coarse obscene joke
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 131 
 
 causes shame or disgust, the obscene delicate witticism incites 
 us to laughter because wit has come to its aid. At a gathering 
 of ladies and gentlemen of the highest culture, it is not at 
 all uncommon for one of the company to make a joke so 
 risque that were we to examine the actual thought behind 
 it, we would in all probability be terribly shocked, and order 
 the person out of the house ; but because it is given in the 
 form of a witticism, every one is fascinated and laughs. 
 
 It also frequently happens that such wit is produced by 
 the most cultured persons in an involuntary and unconscious 
 way. A gentleman whose words I have no reason to doubt 
 vouches for the truth of the following story : A well known 
 clergyman addressed a women's club and was very profuse 
 in his praise of the ladies of the club and the sex in general. 
 Among other things he said : "As one who knows the 
 frailties of mankind I am repeatedly astounded at the 
 strength of women. In the face of the terrible temptations 
 to which women are constantly subjected it is wonderful at 
 the force they display, yes, it is wonderful that you don't 
 fall, but it is also wonderful when you do fall." The last 
 sentence was uttered unconsciously. The ladies were highly 
 amused but the clergyman assured my friend that he was 
 never more embarrassed in his life. It was an echo from 
 his unconscious or as he himself put it, it was the devil in 
 him who spoke. For the devil is only a personification of our 
 own primitive impulses. Praising the women for not falling 
 was only a reaction to his repressed wishes while he stood 
 there exhibiting through speech before women. 
 
 When we examine the part the wit plays in the service of 
 the hostile tendency, we at once meet with similar conditions. 
 Here, too, we have been taught from time immemorial to 
 repress our anger ; not only are we not allowed to use violence 
 against our enemy, but we are taught that it is bad form 
 even to use insulting language. With the advance of civiliza-
 
 132 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 tion our hostile feelings, like our sexual cravings, have had 
 to be repressed more and more. And though we have not 
 yet reached the point where we are ready to turn our left 
 cheek when we are smitten on the right, we have on the 
 whole made considerable progress in controlling our hostile 
 disposition. To be sure, aggression in conventional form is 
 still the vis a tcrgo of life, and although the early Christian 
 reaction to the then existing pagan sadism was a masochistic 
 exaltation of humility and suffering, the Christian nations 
 have only formally subscribed to it, they have never practiced 
 it. Indeed those races who actually practice the virtues of 
 humility and non-resistance have been treated with contempt 
 by the leading Christian nations. As the Yonkers Statesman 
 puts it : "It's alright to sympathize with the underdog in a 
 fight, but a fellow would be a fool to bet on him." But as 
 society forbids us to express most of our feelings in action, 
 we have developed, however, as in the case of the sexual 
 aggression, a new mode of invective, by means of which we 
 are able to enlist the third person as a confederate. Through 
 wit we are able to humble and ridicule our enemy and thus 
 obtain the pleasure of his defeat through the laughter of 
 the third person, the passive hearer. 
 
 The wit of hostile aggression, then, gives us the means to 
 make our enemy ridiculous, and wins over to our side the 
 third person even though he may not at all be convinced of 
 our position. The anecdote of the two lawyers mentioned 
 above illustrates the process admirably. By way of another 
 illustration take the following example which I have cited 
 in my book : x 
 
 Wendell Phillips, according to the recent biography by Dr. 
 Lorenzo Sears, was, on one occasion, lecturing in Ohio, and 
 while on a railroad journey going to keep one of his appoint- 
 
 1 Psychoanalysis, Its Theories and Applications. 3rd Edit. W. B. 
 Saunders, Philadelphia.
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 133 
 
 ments, he met in the car a number of clergymen returning 
 from some sort of convention. One of the ministers felt 
 called upon to approach Mr. Phillips, and asked him, "Are 
 you Mr. Phillips?" "I am, sir." "Are you trying to free 
 the niggers?" "Yes, sir, I am an abolitionist." "Well, why 
 do you preach your doctrines up here? Why don't you go 
 over into Kentucky ?" "Excuse me," said Wendell Phillips, 
 "are you a preacher?" "I am, sir." "Are you trying to save 
 souls from hell ?" "Yes, sir, that's my business. "Well, why 
 don't you go there ?" — You can see how a witticism like this 
 serves more than disarming a man. The average individual 
 approached in this fashion would have in all likelihood re- 
 taliated with some such invective as, "Go to hell," but Wen- 
 dell Phillips used the tendency wit, and expressed in this way 
 exactly, though in an indirect, brilliant way, just what he 
 wished to say! The minister's behavior was offensive, yet 
 Wendell Phillips, as a man of culture, could not defend 
 himself in the manner of an ill-bred person. The only al- 
 ternative that was left him was to take the affront in silence, 
 but wit came to his aid and enabled him to turn the tables on 
 his assailant. By its means he not only disarmed his op- 
 ponent but fascinated the other clergymen to such an extent 
 that they were won over to his side. 
 
 In summing up it may be said that the main function of 
 wit is to produce pleasure from sources that are otherwise 
 inaccessible to us. Perhaps the clearest demonstration of this 
 is seen in the fact that smutty wit is so often enjoyed by 
 elderly respectable men whose position in society prevents 
 them from giving vent to their love outlets, and by persons 
 who as a result of physical or mental factors are incapable 
 of leading a normal love life. The greatest purveyors of 
 smutty jokes belong to this class. This is clearly the case 
 in tendency wit but the same is also true of harmless wit. 
 When we laugh over Johnny's answer to his teacher when
 
 134 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 he names the "Jail-bird" as the most common bird in cap- 
 tivity, we obtain pleasure through our feeling of superiority. 
 When an audience bursts out laughing when a lady in the 
 cast shouts "Go to hell" it shows its resentment to the con- 
 ventional repression constantly forced upon it by society. 
 Just because a woman is supposed to be more delicate in 
 expression than a gentleman one is sure to be happy when 
 she uses a profane expletive on the stage. It represents 
 the height of social violations. So also one is terribly jarred 
 to hear that no less a personage than Abraham Lincoln was 
 very fond of vulgar wit, a fact which gave his biographers 
 no little amount of worry. They seem to be puzzled at this 
 crass incompatibility and find it extremely difficult to explain 
 it. Thus Mr. Leonard Swett, Lincoln's political associate 
 and later a United States Attorney General, states : "Almost 
 any man who will tell a vulgar story has in a degree a vulgar 
 mind. But it was not so with him; with all his purity of 
 character and exalted morality and sensibility, which no man 
 can doubt, when hunting for wit he had no ability to dis- 
 criminate between the vulgar and refined substances from 
 which he extracted it. It was the wit he was after, the pure 
 jewel ; and he would pick it up out of the mud or dirt just 
 as readily as from the parlor table." Lord Charnwood, from 
 whose work on Abraham Lincoln the above is taken, states : 
 "In any case his best remembered utterances of this order 
 were least fit for print, were both wise and incomparably 
 witty, and in any case they did not prevent grave gentlemen 
 who marvelled at them rather uncomfortably from receiving 
 the deep impression of what they called his pure-minded- 
 ness." The trouble with most biographers is that they always 
 leave out what they consider the un-nice parts of their ideals, 
 forgetting that no matter how exalted a human being may 
 become he is still very human in all his thoughts and actions. 
 Abraham Lincoln was essentially a very aggressive man, he
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 135 
 
 was a fighter and known as such ; any one reading his life can 
 readily see how this "naughty" aggressive boy brought up 
 in wild pioneer days had to overcome enormous primitive 
 forces to become sublimated into the ideal being we know 
 him to be. Strong and aggressive he remained all his life 
 time, and we know that aggression in life also means sexual 
 aggression. This is just what one fails to find in Abraham 
 Lincoln. Unlike so many other great personages there was 
 no sex gossip about him. On the other hand, those who 
 understand the psychic forces of human reactions cannot fail 
 to see many things in his life which point to strong psycho- 
 sexual repression. Perhaps by way of contrast one is forcibly 
 reminded of another ideal character. I am referring to King 
 David, who is not only so regarded by the Jews but also by 
 Christians and Mohammedans. The great psalmist was also 
 a very aggressive and pious man, but at the height of his 
 glory he did not hesitate to commit the sexual crime with 
 Mrs. Uriah, the lawful wife of one of his active generals 
 whom he ordered to be killed in order to escape the wrath of 
 this outraged husband. Well, the Lord sent his prophet 
 Nathan, who gave him a good calling down for it. David 
 wrote a psalm which has been repeated ever since by devout 
 sinners, and then married the lady in question. Nowadays 
 not even a successful king could get away so lightly with such 
 an affair. Psalms or no psalms, all modern men must re- 
 nounce much of their sex aggression. Lincoln wrote the 
 famous address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National 
 Cemetery, he could not write any psalms because he was not 
 conscious of committing adultery. But yet he was a very 
 repressed being and one of his outlets was coprohilic wit 
 of aggression. Perhaps if the biographers would have kept 
 a record of those pithy but indelicate Lincoln jokes it might 
 have helped some equally minded but repressed individuals 
 to leave behind great names instead of repeat King David's
 
 1 36 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 psalm and remain disgraced forever. For in order to be 
 happy one must nowadays get some substitute for reality. 
 The substitute may in itself be a bit shocking but it is much 
 better for the individual and society than to follow reality. 
 Which recalls the following joke: 
 
 A missionary was shipwrecked near what he imagined 
 was a cannibal island. He zvas in mortal terror of the 
 savages so that he remained in the thickest part of the forest. 
 One day he suddenly heard voices, he became terrified, think- 
 ing tJiat his end was near. He listened tensely and heard: 
 'What in hell did you play this card for!" He got on his 
 knees, raised his hands in prayer and said: "Thank the 
 Lord they are Christians." 
 
 Now the missionary recognized the Christians by the fact 
 that they cursed and gambled, the cannibals could do no 
 such things. But then the cannibal needs no such substitutes. 
 He lives his natural life without much repression. He kills 
 or is killed as the case may be, so that he needs no cursing 
 as substitutes, he does not expect anything for nothing so he 
 needs no gambling. He is just like the child in this regard ; 
 when the child begins to develop a sense of humor and begins 
 to curse it is already alive to the burdens of civilization; it 
 is already repressing and compromises on substitutes. 
 Smutty jokes are nothing but substitutes for natural sex. 
 For years I have asked my patients to tell the best jokes they 
 ever heard. I don't ask this question until I am sure that 
 the patient will tell me exactly what comes to his mind. 
 Most of the answers were obtained from ladies and gentle- 
 men of the highest type. I have read some of the answers 
 before a group of scientific men and they enjoyed hearing 
 them, but they all agreed with me that, like most of the 
 Lincoln witticisms, not one of these jokes was fit to print. 
 
 When one watches the trend of the times one observes 
 that as soon as a new taboo comes into existence one is sure
 
 WIT: ITS TECHNIQUE AND TENDENCIES 137 
 
 to hear all sorts of jokes cracked about it. It is for the same 
 reason that government and marriage furnish so much ma- 
 terial for wit. Both are artificial institutions which the 
 average individual finds hard to bear, and as marriage, which 
 is only a phase of sex, touches more vitally the individual 
 than any other cultural institution, it is the principal theme 
 in wit. Although long accepted as an absolutely necessary 
 state in the life of every normal person it is forever criticized 
 and blamed. The following illustration sums up the situa- 
 tion: 
 
 Same Symptoms 
 
 Simpson (greeting his old friend) : "Why, Jones, it's 
 ages since I saw you last. Married now, aren't you?" 
 
 Jones: "No, no, old man, it's not that. Just business 
 worry and nerves." — (The Bulletin — Sydney.) 
 
 In describing some of the more important mechanisms of 
 wit, my main purpose was to pave the way for the psycho- 
 logical mechanisms of the dream. There are many resem- 
 blances between the two psychic phenomena, both in technique 
 and formation. Such mechanism as condensation, displace- 
 ment, etc., play no small part in the technique of wit, and 
 as we shall see in the following chapters, they are found 
 also in the technique of dreams. We regard them as quite 
 natural processes in wit only because we are so much more 
 accustomed to wit than to dreams. The formation of wit 
 resembles also the formation of dreams : both are uncon- 
 scious psychic activities. Wit, like the dream, is an invol- 
 untary mental occurrence. That is why one cannot tell a 
 moment before what joke one is going to crack. The above 
 cited witticism made by the divine addressing the ladies' 
 club nicely illustrates this mechanism. 
 
 But there are also some differences between the dream and 
 the wit. The most important of these is that wit is a social 
 product ; it often requires three persons, and in its tendency,
 
 1 38 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 always requires the participation of at least one other person. 
 The dream, on the other hand, is a perfect individual psychic 
 function, it is of the most personal character and has no 
 interest whatever for the outside world ; one likes to hear 
 a good joke but unless one knows the meaning of dreams, he 
 is bored to distraction when they are recited by the fellow 
 boarder at the breakfast table.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 
 
 "I believe it to be true that dreams are the true interpreters of our 
 inclinations, but there is art required to sort and understand them." 
 
 — Montaigne. 
 
 Hitherto we have dwelt on those mechanisms that we 
 find both in the normal and abnormal spheres, the mechan- 
 isms that may be readily explained on a normal basis. We 
 shall now enter upon the subject of dreams, which, though 
 observed in every normal person, present nevertheless a 
 departure from normal conscious processes. The dream has 
 always been a subject of great interest and from time im- 
 memorial has received considerable speculation. We find 
 allusion to it in all the earliest writings, to say nothing of 
 the literature of modern times in which it receives an ever 
 increasing amount of attention. 
 
 It is noteworthy what a variety of ideas one meets in the 
 literature on the subject. Some of them, I am glad to say, 
 show some signs of logic; the late literature is particularly 
 useful and instructive in that definite problems have been 
 investigated. Most of the material, however, is woefully 
 deficient of any clear or definite conception of the nature or 
 meaning of the dream. You may all know that the ancients 
 attributed it to some altogether external force ; it was either 
 a demon or God himself that was responsible for it. The 
 scriptures tell us that "What God is about to do, he showeth 
 unto Pharaoh." To the Greeks there were good and evil 
 deities that presided over it. These views have come down 
 
 139
 
 140 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 to us traditionally, and we may say that the present popular 
 belief in dreams differs in no respect from that of the 
 classical Greeks and the ancient Egyptians. It is also note- 
 worthy that the laity still continues to believe in their im- 
 portance. In Europe it is quite common for people gambling 
 on lotteries to have a little dream book which gives both 
 interpretations and corresponding numbers. They play the 
 numbers corresponding to the dream, and if they win, it is 
 the dream to which they attribute their success. 
 
 Everybody dreams, and those who think they do not dream 
 may be easily convinced to the contrary by a very simple 
 External experiment. Make up your mind on retiring 
 internal ^ mt ^ > ou ^ iave a dream you will recall it, and 
 ana nuli y° u W ^ undoubtedly be convinced the next 
 
 Dreams morning that you are no exception to the rule. 
 I have known many people who, at first, insisted that they 
 do not dream but who soon had to admit that they were 
 mistaken. 
 
 There are those who believe that dreams are caused by a 
 disturbance of the stomach. How grossly untrue this con- 
 ception is may readily be seen from a careful study and 
 observation of one's dreams. The condition of the stomach 
 has nothing to do with the psychic determinant of the dream, 
 though it is true that the dream may be more easily recalled 
 if the sleep is disturbed. For it is then that the dreamer 
 is thrown into a state commonly designated as the dreamy, 
 or crepuscular, state which is most conducive to the remem- 
 bering of the dream. This fact accounts for the popular 
 conception: people generally have observed that they dream 
 when their sleep is disturbed and have, therefore, associated 
 the origin of the phenomenon with the condition of the 
 stomach. 
 
 There is no doubt, however, that internal and external 
 stimuli give rise to dreams. Attend, for instance, to your
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 141 
 
 alarm clock and you will find usually on awaking that you 
 have dreamed. But these stimuli do not determine the 
 psychic content of the dream, they merely serve as dream 
 inciters. It is a well known fact, borne out by the experi- 
 ments of many investigators in this field, that the same 
 stimulus may incite different dreams at different times and 
 in different individuals. Thus with an alarm clock acting as 
 a stimulus one person may see himself going to church on 
 an early Sunday morning and hear the church bells ringing, 
 while another person may see a wagon full of tin cans and 
 an automobile colliding with it. What is highly significant 
 to note here is that a short stimulus may produce a dream 
 which will often require a half hour to describe. 
 
 There was an interesting discussion a number of years 
 ago in the Revue P kilos op hi que in Paris on a dream that the 
 dreamer described as follows: It was during the French 
 Revolution; he saw himself present at a session of the 
 National Convention ; many royal personages were brought 
 before it, tried and condemned to die. He could see how 
 they were being led away on the cabriolets, placed on the 
 guillotine and beheaded. Suddenly he himself was arrested, 
 having been accused of some crime. He appeared before 
 the Convention, defended himself, remembering the speech 
 that he made, how he argued with the public prosecutor, and 
 how finally he was sentenced to death. He was hurried 
 off on the tumbrel, then taken from the prison to the 
 guillotine. His head was placed on the block, he felt the 
 blade strike the back of his neck, and presently he awoke 
 to find that a board of the bed fell and struck him on the 
 back of the neck. 
 
 The question that naturally arises here is : "How is it that 
 so short a stimulus produced so long a drea.ni? How long 
 did the dream take, how was it possible to crowd all that 
 material which required so much time to write down, into a
 
 i 4 2 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 space of apparently a few seconds ?" The board struck him, 
 he awoke, and remembered the dream. Many explanations 
 were presented, but with the exception of Prof. Freud 
 who has succeeded in unravelling the secret of the dream 
 generally, none of the writers really explained the mechan- 
 ism. Analysis reveals that the dreamer was a Frenchman. 
 As a boy he read the French Revolution, and like all boys, 
 lived right through this stirring and romantic period. I have 
 already drawn your attention, I think, in another connection 
 to the psychic mechanism of identification, by virtue of which 
 we read ourselves into a situation of marked affective con- 
 tent or live through the life of an individual whom we love 
 or admire. In reading we usually select the hero or heroine 
 upon whom we fix this marked interest; sometimes, too, I 
 am bold enough to say, we may even identify ourselves with 
 the villain. We feel deeply with whatever individual we 
 identify ourselves with ; we are with him in his moments of 
 profound sorrow and joy, we live his life, as it were. It is 
 nothing unusual to see one weep in the theater at some 
 serious turn of fortune in the story of our "favorite" char- 
 acter. This mode of projecting ourselves into the lives of 
 others, this profound and powerful sense of sympathy with 
 their deeper experiences is quite unconscious and continues 
 throughout life. A little boy reading about Indians may 
 identify himself with the brave and virtuous Indian, or 
 with the scout. Many women have come under my notice 
 whose whole course of life was determined by a certain book 
 or series of books by a particular author ; unconsciously and 
 sometimes even consciously they governed their lives accord- 
 ing to the characters depicted in the story, particularly ac- 
 cording to some special character that strongly appealed to 
 them. Now the identification mechanism enables us to 
 endow every scene, every situation that appeals to us with 
 a certain emotional warmth and tone. We may only seem-
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 143 
 
 ingly forget a situation that once had profoundly stirred us, 
 but it always remains in the unconscious ; it has rooted itself 
 in our inmost thoughts and feelings, it has become a part of 
 us. Any conscious or unconscious association may bring it 
 back to the mind with all its former vividness. That is 
 what happened in the case of the dreamer. As a boy he read 
 the story of the Revolution with breathless interest. The 
 unfortunates who were guillotined particularly impressed 
 him; he absorbed to the full the pathos, the horror, the 
 terrible meaning of the situation. And now when the board 
 fell on the back of his neck, it recalled, by association, the 
 whole situation, in all its vividness and with all its attending 
 emotions. The thoughts and feelings associated with the 
 execution were registered in the mind and were now brought 
 to the surface by this external stimulus. The action was 
 similar to what we find in the theater : the stage manager 
 pushes the button and the scene shifter brings on the ap- 
 propriate scene. The external stimulus, by an accidental 
 association, served to bring into play a whole group of 
 formerly accentuated ideas and emotions. 
 
 Internal stimuli act in the same way. If, for instance, 
 you experience certain sensations in your stomach to-day 
 that you had five years ago, the likelihood is that your dreams 
 will have a resemblance in some way to those of the former 
 period. When we bear this in mind, we do not have to 
 resort to supernatural causes to account for the fact that 
 some people can foretell by a certain dream that they are 
 going to be sick. Long before one is conscious of his sick- 
 ness, long before, for instance, the mucous membrane of the 
 nose and throat becomes so swollen that it begins to run and 
 ache, the congestion starts and arouses associations in the 
 mind which recall some similar situation in the past. That 
 is enough to cause the individual to dream of the sickness. 
 One woman actually had the same type of dream every time
 
 144 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 before she got a cold in the head, as she called it. We 
 observe this phenomenon under different forms in every-day 
 life. Patients in speaking to me of certain ailments, let us 
 say, periodic headaches, may often tell me how glad they 
 are that they did not have the headache for the last three 
 months. I am not at all pleased to hear this, for I know 
 that the fact that they thought of it is already an indication 
 that it is coming on, but that it has not as yet manifested 
 itself to consciousness. To be sure, I learn the next day 
 that the headache has arrived. A disease does not manifest 
 itself suddenly ; long before the person consciously knows 
 that he is sick, he experiences, though vaguely, some feeling 
 of depression or uneasiness that carries with it a sense of 
 foreboding to those who are ignorant of the psychological 
 significance of the condition. That undoubtedly accounts 
 for the fact that both among primitive and modern people 
 the sneeze was always greeted with some formula that sig- 
 nified the wish to avert evil. Undoubtedly primitive man 
 learned empirically that whenever he began to sneeze some 
 disease would follow, because practically all serious diseases 
 begin with coryza. One has a right to believe that primitive 
 man had less chance to overcome such diseases as pneumonia 
 and other infectious or contagious diseases than his modern 
 brother, and as sneezing was invariably followed by disease 
 which often ended fatally, primitive man naturally tried to 
 stop it through incantations. I feel that this really explains 
 the sneezing ceremonial in a much simpler way and is nearer 
 to the truth than the explanation offered by Dr. Wallace in 
 his interesting dissertation on "The Romance and the 
 Tragedy of Sneezing." x 
 
 In physical, as well as in mental life, a certain stimulus 
 is required before a certain reaction is produced. I am sure 
 that those of you who have studied academic psychology 
 
 1 Scientific Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 6.
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 145 
 
 will recall the Weber-Fechner law of the relation of stimulus 
 to intensity of sensation, — the intensity of the one being 
 directly proportional to the intensity of the other. One of 
 the experiments that we perform in the examination of 
 patients, particularly when we wish to determine their degree 
 of attention, is to expose pictures to them very rapidly, the 
 exposure lasting only a few seconds. We then ask them 
 to tell us what they observed. A great many will declare 
 at first that they saw nothing, but upon urging them to tell 
 you what comes to their mind, they invariably will mention 
 something that has a more or less fundamental resemblance 
 to the picture. I show a person a Japanese scene, and he 
 declares at first that he saw nothing. I urge him to reflect, 
 and he soon replies, "Well, I think of China." You see that 
 he noted the resemblance, although he has not consciously 
 seen the picture. In order to be heard, I do not have to 
 speak to you here, for instance, as loudly as I would have to 
 in the subway. But if I whisper here, you may not hear 
 me, but the stimulus is present, the sound is here. In other 
 words, I may say that before you see, you have already 
 seen, before you hear, you have already heard, but the stimu- 
 lus was not sufficiently strong to make you feel conscious of 
 the sensation. 
 
 Incidentally, I may say that if you remember this impor- 
 tant law in psychology, you will be able to understand many 
 of the occurrences to which people generally attribute so 
 much importance. You are often asked to explain, for 
 example, how it is that when you talk of Mr. Brown, he is 
 sure to appear. The fact is that you either saw or heard 
 Mr. Brown before you talked about him. Let us remember 
 that our senses tell us much more than we generally sup- 
 pose, and though we have little confidence in them, they 
 still operate, and render us knowledge long before we are
 
 146 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 really conscious of it. You may be on the avenue speaking 
 to your friend, when somebody passes who has aroused 
 certain associations in your brain. You begin to talk about 
 him, although you have not consciously seen him, and sud- 
 denly, to your great surprise, he stands there before you in 
 his own flesh and blood. "Talk of the devil, and he is sure 
 to appear." But he has been there in your field of vision 
 long before you actually saw him. 
 
 But I may be reminded: "I talked about a man while 
 being in the house and to be sure, he came in." Usually we 
 can hear the person approaching, and I still have to find the 
 person who knows somebody well, but cannot recognize the 
 latter's footsteps. At home we can always tell who is coming, 
 whether mother, father, or some other intimate person. We 
 may also explain on this basis such occurrences as find ex- 
 pression in the following characteristic remark : "How do 
 you account for my receiving a letter from a woman whom 
 I have not heard from for a long time, and strange, I talked 
 about her only yesterday?" When you investigate you find 
 that there is a similar mechanism involved, that the situation 
 presents nothing at all mysterious or psychic. You have 
 established a certain connection in your mind between that 
 person and yourself. At about that period you think of a 
 sudden of that individual by virtue of a psychic process to 
 which I have already drawn your attention under the term 
 of "Post-hypnotic suggestion;" that is to say, at the expira- 
 tion of a certain time, a certain impression received in the 
 past will recur, and revive an old association. 
 
 The underlying nature and meaning of the dream was 
 not known until Prof. Freud propounded his theories. All 
 sorts of interpretations were presented but there was no 
 general, fundamental conception. In analyzing his patients 
 Freud found that they all dreamed and the question pre- 
 sented itself, "Are dreams psychic mechanisms or do they
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 147 
 
 represent sheer nonsense, having no relation to the in- 
 dividual's psychic life?" The answer involved a funda- 
 mental conception; everything both in physical and mental 
 life has a reason ; as in the physical, so in the psychic sphere, 
 there is nothing that has not some function. We 
 
 The 
 
 have tears, not merely to weep, but to keep the Dream 
 eyes constantly moist to wash them; otherwise Guardian 
 they would be coated with dust that would make 
 it impossible for us to see. We have sweat glands in order to 
 equalize the temperature of the body, and saliva to assist in 
 deglution and digestion generally. In the same way every 
 psychic function has its raison d'etre. The question then, 
 was "Why do we dream?" He thoroughly investigated the 
 literature on the subject but it was not there that the answer 
 was to be found. It was only as he delved deeper and 
 deeper into the symptom and saw its profound intimate 
 connection with the dream, that he was approaching a solu- 
 tion of the problem. He began to see that the dream is a 
 perfect psychic mechanism, that it is not at all arbitrary, but 
 that it has a definite relation to the individual's psychic life. 
 The deeper he probed the dream, the more did its wisdom 
 and underlying senses of order grow upon him, until finally 
 he formulated the thesis that "a dream is the hidden fulfill- 
 ment of a repressed wish." In other words, a dream is a 
 wish that the individual could not realize in the waking state. 
 Now before dilating on this conclusion, let me go back to 
 the function of the dream. During the day we all think of 
 a host of things ; I am sure I am not exaggerating when I 
 say that hundreds and hundreds of thoughts run through 
 the mind ; they glide by and we are not even conscious of 
 them. But there are always some problems coming up that 
 absorb us. It is well known that if any question should con- 
 tinue to engage our attention to a marked degree, it would 
 be impossible for us to fall asleep. We are all aware that
 
 148 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 any strong or poignant emotion, whether it be one of pleasure 
 or pain, may keep one awake. An individual who is elated 
 does not wish to sleep, and for that matter, cannot sleep, be- 
 cause his senses are too alive and high-strung. To sleep it is 
 necessary to exclude all sensations from all organs. We go 
 to bed so that we may relax; the lights are turned out in 
 order to exclude all sensory stimulations. Experiment has 
 demonstrated that sleep is usually induced when sensations 
 are thus excluded. All sensory impressions have been shut 
 out from animals and sleep usually followed. Thus, when 
 there is any problem engrossing the mind, the tendency is not 
 to fall asleep. Now what are the things that would keep us 
 awake ? They are usually those that we have not been able to 
 attain, or those we have not been able to solve. One works out 
 a problem, thinking to himself: "If I can put that through, 
 I will be fortunate: my future will be assured. If I cannot 
 execute it, I do not know what I am to do : I will lose my 
 position and will not be able to take care of my family." 
 He goes to bed and dwells on the problem. He would 
 probably continue with it throughout the whole night were it 
 not for his wish to sleep. What actually happens then is 
 that the mind takes the problem and weaves it into a dream. 
 The dream then realizes the wish and thus makes sleep pos- 
 sible. 
 
 In every-day life we know that once a question is solved, 
 there is no further need for preoccupation with it. It is 
 merely a matter of how to solve an existing problem. A 
 child goes to sleep, crying; it wants a doll. The mother 
 quickly appeases it by granting the wish. So far so good; 
 but this same child has now grown older and wants some- 
 thing that the mother cannot so easily secure. Now it has 
 to go without it, but as it wishes to sleep, the problem is 
 solved in a different way. Nature assures our rest by 
 seemingly granting us our wishes. The child now dreams
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 149 
 
 that it has obtained what it was refused in reality. Like- 
 wise, if you should go to bed to-night after eating a very 
 salty supper, you will undoubtedly desire water at night, but 
 instead of waking up, particularly if the room is cold, you 
 will dream that you are slaking your thirst with some re- 
 freshing water, or if you are more fortunately constituted, 
 with some stronger and more inviting beverage. This is a 
 very common "convenience" dream. If you retire hungry, 
 you will invariably dream that you are eating. I spoke to 
 Professor Macmillan who went with Peary to the North 
 Pole and he told me what great pleasure they had experi- 
 enced in their dreams. The reason is quite clear. These men 
 who had known the delicacies of New York restaurants, were 
 compelled to live on pemmican and a simple Arctic Zone diet. 
 They dreamed of the things they were anxious to have. They 
 smoked fine cigars and drank highballs in their sleep. Chil- 
 dren invariably show that they dream of those things that 
 they cannot have in the waking state. Children's dreams and 
 the so-called convenience dreams of adults are thus open 
 wishes. When the dreams, however, are not of this type, the 
 situation is quite different, and it is here that we encounter 
 serious difficulties in understanding them. 
 
 To appreciate how the dream acts as the guardian of 
 sleep, consider with me the following case of a business man 
 who had been with his firm for a number of years, whose 
 ability was recognized, but for whom there was manifestly 
 no real place in the proposed reorganization of the business. 
 In order to remain in the new organization he must show that 
 he can be a factor in it, that there is a special department 
 that he can manage ; otherwise he realizes that he will have 
 to lose his position. He evolves a scheme which he is to 
 present the next morning before the board of trustees. He 
 goes to bed, constantly thinking of the matter : he sees him- 
 self before the board, he anticipates the arguments of his
 
 150 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 two opponents, he wonders what best reply to make. The 
 clock strikes, one, two, and three, but he is still awake. Finally 
 exhausted, he falls asleep and has the following dream: 
 He is swimming in the New York Bay on a board which he 
 is able to manipulate just as if it were an excellent motor 
 boat. The steamers are going and coming, but he is by no 
 means disconcerted: every time a big boat approaches, he 
 very deftly steers out of its course, or rides over the waves 
 with ease and pleasure. He is enjoying the swim immensely. 
 He awoke with a feeling of satisfaction. When he came to 
 me the next day, he wondered what sort of wish his dream 
 could represent. I reminded him at once that the dream is 
 not always an open wish but a hidden realization of a re- 
 pressed wish. The interpretation is simple enough. He 
 was to appear the next day, as I said, before the board of 
 trustees to lay before it his plans for the reorganization of 
 the business ; he knew that unless he could convince them to 
 accept his scheme, he would lose his position. He knew 
 furthermore, that some members of the board were antago- 
 nistic to him and would raise objections regardless of what- 
 ever plans he proposed ; on the other hand, he was, aware that 
 most of the members were favorably disposed toward him. 
 It was some time before he fell asleep, because his mind was 
 constantly dwelling on the whole situation. He would have 
 remained awake throughout the night, but as he was tired and 
 wished to sleep, the disturbing problem had to be solved in 
 some way. This could only be effected by weaving his 
 emotionally accentuated ideas into a dream which represented 
 his wish as accomplished. When I asked him what his 
 dream recalled he told me he used to engage, as a boy, in 
 swimming races on boards on the Ohio River, in which he 
 was highly proficient. And so you see, because he was 
 thinking of how to control the board, a situation in the past 
 presented itself to him in which he actually managed boards
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 151 
 
 skilfully and won. The mechanism of "double entendre/' 
 double meaning of a word, reproduced in his mind a scene 
 from boyhood in which he had perfect control of a board. 
 It was a different board, to be sure, but that made little 
 difference in the unconscious, the important thing was that 
 he was able to guide it through all obstacles. The dream not 
 only enabled him to sleep but the pain of to-morrow's un- 
 certainty was replaced by pleasant feelings of his remote 
 past. Thus the dream was the producer as well as the 
 guardian of sleep. 
 
 From the above dream we may see the first difficulty in 
 dream analysis, viz., that the language of the dream is visual : 
 we see images, we express ideas in symbols. Whereas in 
 the waking state, "to see" is used in the literal as well as the 
 more or less figurative sense of "to understand," in the sleep- 
 ing state we use it entirely in its literal significance. We do 
 not think in the dream in any logical sense, we merely see a 
 succession of images, which had been stored in the mind in 
 the past. It would have been otherwise impossible for the 
 dreamer who dreamed about the French Revolution to con- 
 dense, as he did, so much thought in a few seconds ; what the 
 dream really did was to revive pictures in his mind that he 
 actually gleaned from history books or that his own imagina- 
 tion may have created, while he was immersed in his read- 
 ing. 
 
 Abstract ideas in dreams can only be represented graphi- 
 cally. In this respect the dreamer acts like the child or the 
 artist. I have asked many people how they would repre- 
 sent, for instance, the abstract idea of charity on canvas or 
 in marble, and I have never found two individuals who gave 
 me exactly the same description. It is noteworthy that they 
 always describe the first thing that comes to their mind. 
 One person may see a haggard, decrepit woman, in a shawl, 
 holding out her hand, and a well dressed lady giving her
 
 152 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 coins; another may see a little girl, ragged and frozen, 
 begging alms, and a man pausing to help her. And so the 
 pictures vary with each individual. But the significant thing 
 that analysis reveals is that all these people invariably re- 
 produce something that they had formerly experienced. 
 When I asked, for instance, the person that gave me the 
 first representation above to tell me what it suggested to him, 
 he recalled a trip in Italy where he actually witnessed many 
 such scenes in which an American woman would pause to 
 give alms to some Italian beggar. Everybody has his own 
 memory images for abstract ideas, which, although uncon- 
 scious, have their peculiar, special meaning to him, and are 
 represented in dreams in their original form. 
 
 Thus one of my patients associated in his dream a certain 
 woman whom he knew with grief, because he thought of her 
 as a "funeral bird" in the waking state. Likewise one may 
 utilize in the dream any situation representing in his mind 
 some idea or emotion, as a symbol for a certain feeling a 
 certain "Stimmung." That is why it is wrong to attempt to 
 |_vi>h interpret a dream with, a knowledge of what the particular 
 image represents in the particular person's mind. There 
 are, to be sure, some dreams that evince ethnic symbols to 
 which definite meanings may be ascribed, but you have to be 
 extremely careful even with those; they may have an al- 
 together different significance in different individuals. In 
 other words, the meaning of the dream cannot usually be 
 known unless the dreamer is well known to the analyst. 
 
 The following dream is a fine example of how abstract 
 thoughts are visualized concretely in dreams. Miss S. 
 dreamed that she "passed a very tall building from which 
 smoke came out. Then some flames burst forth. I could 
 feel the awful heat." 
 
 Analysis: Miss S. is not very fortunate in love. She 
 is well educated, intelligent, and good-looking, but a little too
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 153 
 
 reserved to suit the average young man. She had many 
 admirers, but for some reason or other the eligible man either 
 failed to appear, or made little progress toward matrimony. 
 The day before the dream she visited a friend, who jokingly 
 teased her about T., one of her admirers. She heard that 
 he was a "steady caller," as she put it, and wanted to know 
 when the engagement would be announced, and so on. Miss 
 S. was embarrassed, and protested that there was no truth 
 in the rumor, that it was nothing but idle gossip. Secretly, 
 however, she cherished the thought that T. might marry her. 
 The conversation ended with the significant remark from 
 her friend, "Where there's smoke there must be fire." 
 The dream fulfills her wish. The very tall building is her- 
 self, — she is very tall. She sees the smoke, then the flames, 
 and can feel the awful heat. The saying, where there is 
 smoke there is fire, is simply visualized by the dream, and as 
 the dreamer is the chief actor of the dream, she is the tall 
 building. A building or house, as is well known, is an old 
 symbol for the body. We often speak of the body as the 
 house we live in. Fire and heat are symbols of love. 
 
 An interesting little example of this identification of love 
 with fire is found in one of Maupassant's short stories, "Al- 
 ways Lock the Door," which many of you perhaps have read. 
 An old bachelor relates how his first real adventure in love 
 miscarried by his failure to lock the door. He invited his 
 fair friend to his private room one day, but to his great 
 distress, found that he had no fire because the chimney 
 smoked. "The very evening before," he goes on to tell us, 
 "I had spoken to my landlord, a retired shopkeeper, about it, 
 and he had promised that he would send for the chimney 
 sweep in a day or two to get it all put to right. As soon as 
 she came in I said, 'There is no fire because my chimney 
 smokes.' She did not even appear to hear me but stam- 
 mered, 'That does not matter, I have. . . .' '
 
 154 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 Apart from the fact that the language of the dream is 
 visual, another difficulty in dream analysis is that when the 
 dream wishes to represent something hidden, it resorts to the 
 same mechanisms that we use in the waking state when we 
 wish to express something indirectly ; that is to say, it has re- 
 course to the "double entendre," double meaning, distortions 
 and similar mechanisms. I need not give you examples ; all 
 you have to do is to think of the theatre, of the different 
 witticisms you hear and read; you will then realize that in 
 a sense nobody expresses himself truthfully. Writers fre- 
 quently resort to all sorts of detours, euphemisms and sym- 
 bolisms when they wish to express something which would 
 sound either harsh or objectionable to polite society. Thus 
 we find that the words thigh and staff are often used in 
 the Bible to express that part which represents the male. No 
 one is ashamed of taking nourishment, if he is hungry, or of 
 quenching thirst, if he is thirsty, and that is why conven- 
 ience dreams are quite open. But it is quite different with 
 the other necessities of nature and with the functions ap- 
 pertaining to sex. Most people are trained to conceal all 
 manifestations of the sex impulse, and as a result, all ex- 
 pression in this sphere is indirect and distorted even in the 
 waking state. It is instructive to note, for instance, some of 
 the indirect expressions, such as the "curse" or the "old 
 woman" that women use in referring to menstruation, a 
 physiological function of which no one indeed need be 
 ashamed. It is not at all surprising, then, that this secret 
 language in which we speak about sex functions, should so 
 often baffle us. 
 
 A woman, for example, related to me the following dream : 
 "I was sleeping with a very disagreeable old lady and was 
 quite disgusted." She wished to know how such a dream 
 could represent a wish. When I asked her for associations, 
 she replied that nothing came to her mind ; there was no one
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 155 
 
 with whom she could identify this "old lady." Then I in- 
 quired what she had done the day previous to the dream, for 
 we must remember to seek the determinant of the dream in 
 that immediate past ; the determinant is invariably an occur- 
 rence of the day previous to the dream. Some stimulus or 
 impression through any one of the senses strikes, as it were, 
 something similar in the mind with which the latter is en- 
 grossed, something that has emotional tone ; and it is this 
 that gives rise to the dream. I learned presently that the 
 woman had been at a party the night before, at which one of 
 the men proposed to take her horse-back riding on Sunday. 
 She went on to tell me that she feared that she could not ac- 
 cept the invitation ; I inquired what reason she had for 
 having to decline it and she informed me, after a little re- 
 sistance, that she was afraid she might menstruate on that 
 day. It occurred to me then to ask her how she designates 
 this function: "Why, we call it the 'disagreeable old 
 woman/ " I learned. Here you have the analysis of the 
 dream. When the young man invited her to go riding on 
 Sunday, she wished to accept but expecting to menstruate 
 on that day she had to give an indefinite answer. She 
 turned to her sister who understood her and said : "I am 
 afraid that the old woman might come." But as she was 
 very anxious to go, she dreamed that she had already men- 
 struated, that she had gone through with the disagreeable 
 affair, that the "old lady" had already been with her. Upon 
 superficial examination, then, it would have been nonsense to 
 say that the dream represented a wish, but once you under- 
 stand what is going on in the dreamer's mind, the deeper 
 meaning becomes evident. I repeat, then, in order to analyze 
 a dream, it is absolutely necessary to know the dreamer well, 
 not only as he is on parade, but in those moments when he is 
 most himself; you must know his intimate personality, and 
 his idiomatic expressions, as it were.
 
 156 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 As an example of how dream analysis is made difficult by 
 the "distortion" mechanism, consider the following dream 
 related to me by a patient : He dreamed he was translating 
 Latin. "/ used the word 'whine' and the teacher said it 
 should be 'when not 'whine.' " Upon analysis it was found 
 that the teacher in the dream represented myself, that the 
 seances with me reminded him of going to school again, of 
 coming to me, as to a teacher, and asking me questions. 
 Associating further, he presently recalled that the week be- 
 fore he felt very much depressed ; he came to me and com- 
 plained bitterly. I told him not to "whine," that he would 
 surely get well, but that it was only a question of time, — i. e. 
 "when." But why did he have to take up Latin? The 
 first association that came to his mind apropos of that was 
 that whenever he attended his Latin hour, he was always 
 nervous : he used an interlinear. I accordingly told him that 
 he must be cheating with me, too, and he admitted that he 
 was ; he declared that there were certain things that he felt 
 he could not reveal to me, that indeed it was rather foolish 
 to think that one has to disclose everything to the physician. 
 As you see, he was trying to use an interlinear again, but it 
 did not work. I informed him that he would recover when 
 he ceased whining; "when?" — "When you begin to tell the 
 truth ; when you do not use an interlinear, when you will be 
 willing to become independent of outside help." 
 
 Another example of distortion as found in dreams may be 
 seen in the following case. One of my patients related to 
 me how he was present at the usual New Year's Eve dinner 
 that his father-in-law is accustomed to give to the whole 
 family. At the appropriate moment, the head of the family 
 rose and made a speech in which he commented on every 
 member of the family in his wonted good-natured way. In 
 summing up the results of the past year, the old gentleman 
 observed : "When I look upon the assets and the liabilities of
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 157 
 
 the year everyone of you is on the asset side." At this the 
 patient smiled and thought to himself : "What about your 
 son, the black sheep of the family who is causing you so much 
 trouble?" This son was quite a serious problem to his 
 father, he was considered the black sheep of the family. He 
 was a ne'er-do-well, because he was absolutely unable to tell 
 the truth ; he was a pathological liar of the first order. Fol- 
 lowing this incident the patient dreamed that he saw a 
 balance sheet, under the assets were the names of the various 
 members of the family, under the liabilities there was just 
 the name of the son. But instead of "liabilities" the word 
 was spelt thus : "Lie-abilities." The distortion in this dream 
 is exactly of the same character as that found in witticisms. 
 When a New York critic, for instance, in reviewing a play, 
 the first two acts of which he evidently considered very good, 
 the third rather poor, remarked : "The first two acts are 
 capital, the third is labor," he was merely resorting to a 
 technique which is by no means uncommon in dreams.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 
 
 (Continued) 
 
 We posit the fundamental principle that the motive of the 
 dream is the wish. The individual craves for something, but 
 as he cannot attain it in reality, by virtue of its unattainable 
 or disagreeable nature, he realizes it in the dream. When 
 one assures you that he does not dream it simply means that 
 he does not remember his dreams, and that, because he is 
 little interested in the problem of dreams, and last but not 
 least because as its function ceases on awakening the re- 
 pression reasserts itself. To be sure, some dream more than 
 others. Of the many writers who have investigated this 
 subject, there was one Santo de Sanctis of Rome who held 
 that criminals do not dream. You can readily see what the 
 explanation would be in the light of our theories. A 
 criminal does not as a rule repress much ; whenever he wants 
 something, he immediately sets about attaining it. When the 
 average normal person sees something that he wants, but that 
 he knows is absolutely beyond his reach, he has learned not 
 even to desire it consciously, in any real sense. The criminal 
 does not, however, react in this manner. What has caught 
 his fancy he immediately sets out to gain ; by virtue of his 
 weakmindedness no fear of society and law stays him. Be- 
 cause he does not repress, he inevitably has nothing to dream 
 about. I have found from my own experience, however, 
 that Santo de Sanctis was not entirely right in his conclusions, 
 that whereas most criminals I have questioned did not really 
 
 158
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 159 
 
 dream as much as the average person, they all admitted 
 nevertheless that they dream occasionally. ,After all, there is 
 no human being who can attain all his wishes. 
 
 In order to understand why the dream should thus be 
 motived by the wish it is necessary to have some idea of the 
 evolution of the child from the very beginning. The average 
 child expresses no wishes, all its wants are gratified by its 
 mother ; it lies in the cradle, frolics when satisfied, cries 
 when hungry or uncomfortable. Gradually, as it grows 
 older its demands multiply and become more marked ; it is 
 then that the situation becomes a problem. Observe a child 
 that does not as yet know how to express itself in speech and 
 you will find that it wants everything that it sees in its en- 
 vironment ; it will pull you to the object of its fancy ; it craves 
 to grasp and hold it. The older it grows, the more imperious 
 become its wants. When it has learned to talk, you can 
 readily see how powerfully the wish predominates in life ; the 
 child demands all the time, nothing can satisfy it. 
 
 The child starts its life with what we call the pleasure 
 principle ; it craves for nothing but pleasure. It eats, sleeps, 
 and plays. When it is satisfied, it finds pleasure in sucking 
 its thumb ; and the Germans very aptly call thumb-sucking 
 Wonne-saugen, pleasure sucking. When it has once ex- 
 perienced a pleasure it will always seek to reproduce it. 
 Specialists have accordingly advised mothers not to rock a 
 child to sleep all the time. For motion is the most ele- 
 mentary form of pleasure and manifests itself throughout 
 our lives. It may interest you to know that it is at the basis 
 of our love for dancing and all other enjoyments. In all 
 popular amusement resorts that I have visited both here and 
 on the continent 99% of the pleasure is essentially based on 
 this principle. We find here a reversion to an infantile mode 
 of gratification. 
 
 Gradually, however, society begins to curb the child;
 
 160 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 parents cannot give it everything and it begins to feel the 
 force of repression. The older it grows, the more it has to 
 cope with the principle of reality; education and all other 
 cultural forces are based on the realization that the in- 
 dividual has to be prepared to face that stern fact. If he 
 does not adjust himself to reality, he will flounder about and 
 finally fail, despite everything one may do to help him. I 
 saw a man a few weeks ago whose parents were multi- 
 millionaires; he was brought up in the most attractive en- 
 vironment. He was destined for the army, sent to West 
 Point, stayed there a year and a half and was then expelled 
 on demerits ; he would not follow the rules of discipline nor 
 study. When he related to me some of his escapades I 
 could not help but wonder how he ever succeeded in staying 
 at the academy as long as he did. But he explained to me 
 that his father was very influential and had considerable 
 weight with the authorities. Expelled from West Point, 
 he matriculated in other schools, but could not get along in 
 any one of them. He was hail-fellow-well-met with the 
 students, for he had plenty of money to spend, but he could 
 not study. "Why should I? What's the use?" he would 
 say to himself. When his father died, he came into his own 
 rights and within two or three years he spent not only every 
 cent he had, but all that his mother could give him. When 
 the war broke out he enlisted. A great many of his old 
 classmates were now colonels in the regular army; one of 
 them who liked him needed a sergeant-major and so took 
 him into his regiment. He did quite well for a time, but 
 was presently compelled to leave the post. He was sent 
 to the guard house and it was there that he passed most of his 
 time throughout the whole war. He would have made a 
 good fighter, but he was absolutely unable to adapt himself 
 to the demands of reality; he could not be disciplined. He 
 could not bear to have "those idiots," as he called some of
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 161 
 
 his superiors, tell him what to do. Recently a Major of 
 the Medical Corps advised him to see me. He was ragged 
 and torn when he came to me. I learned that he was a dish 
 washer in one of the hotels in the city, and had just been 
 "fired." The man is quite normal intellectually; he is 
 merely a spoiled child, emotionally untrained and wild. He 
 was able to do as he wanted when he had money, but now, 
 as he put it, he was "down and out." And so it is ab- 
 solutely impossible for the individual to get along in the 
 world, unless he adjusts himself to the principle of reality, 
 which means nothing more nor less than the principle of in- 
 hibitions and repressions. Education in the final analysis is 
 nothing but a means of equipping the individual with those 
 impressions that have already been gathered by others in 
 order that he may thus be fitted to face and overcome the 
 difficulties and obstacles of life, to cope with the problems 
 of reality. 
 
 The child's education, accordingly, begins at a very early 
 period. Long before he actually enters school, he has been 
 receiving at home all this while instruction of the most vital 
 importance ; he has been learning all this while to repress. 
 Mothers and fathers who have observed carefully the de- 
 velopment of the child know but too well that the first word 
 that it learns to speak is "no," it is not at all "dada" or 
 "mama." It either moves its head to say "no," or 
 actually says it. The reason is clear. There is nothing that 
 you wish the child to do that it wants to do ; it always insists 
 on doing things in its own way. Immediately corrective 
 forces begin to operate and the individual who was destined 
 by nature to be free and lead a lawless existence is curbed 
 finally to the demands of actual life. Centuries of civiliza- 
 tion have left their mark upon us, and we must now live 
 accordingly. No one, I dare say, would wish to live after 
 the manner of our primitive ancestors. There is therefore
 
 162 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 a constant struggle : no one likes to submit to the repression 
 that the inhibitory aspects of civilization demand; no one 
 finds it easy to repress the primitive impulses. Thus it may 
 be said in truth that the individual begins with "no" from 
 his very infancy, and continues to declare it more and more 
 vociferously until his death. His life, one might say, is 
 one long struggle, one bitter revolt. In the light of this 
 principle the idea of absolute independence and happiness 
 takes on a rather sombre aspect. For no matter what you 
 may do for the individual, he cannot be in any final sense 
 happy or independent, for what he really wants is some- 
 thing that goes back to his infantile life. In the very nature 
 of things, then, we can never be satisfied ; no individual 
 can ever be absolutely contented with his environment, there 
 is always room for improvement. There is a story that runs 
 through my mind which some of you may have perhaps 
 heard. It is the story of a king whose only child, a little 
 girl, became ill. He had the very best doctors attending on 
 her ; the chief physician finally informed him that the child 
 was helpless, that nothing could be done to save her. The 
 king waxed angry. "You mean to say that with all your 
 knowledge and sciences you cannot do anything for the 
 child?" he demanded. "It suffers from a condition that is 
 incurable," replied the physician. The king became furious 
 and began to threaten. At last one of the doctors declared 
 that there was but one thing that could cure the child, and 
 that was for her to wear the shirt of one who was per- 
 fectly happy. The king was glad, for he thought that that 
 was simple enough to do ; immediately he had the news 
 heralded through the town. But it was impossible to find 
 such a person. Meanwhile the child's condition was growing 
 more serious and the king was in great distress. Immersed 
 in dark thoughts, he took a walk on the outskirts of the city. 
 Presently he met a young ragamuffin, a shepherd boy,
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 163 
 
 whistling and very joyful. "You seem to be very happy?" 
 said the king. "Yes," answered the boy. "But do tell 
 me, what makes you so happy?" inquired the king. "Why 
 shouldn't I be? Everything is lovely. Jane loves me and I 
 am going to marry her soon. I just feel fine." "Did you 
 hear that the king is looking for some one who is perfectly 
 happy?" the king continued. "Yes, I heard of it, but I 
 haven't a shirt," was the shepherd's reply. You see only a 
 person who can be satisfied without having a shirt, can 
 really be happy, but are there such persons outside of the 
 lunatic asylum? 
 
 Now the significant thing to note is that although society 
 has actually succeeded in training the individual to forego 
 and renounce and thus to adjust himself to prevailing con- 
 ditions, we nevertheless find, when we examine his intimate 
 psychological recesses, that he really never foregoes his de- 
 sires absolutely, that he has a way of realizing them. In 
 dreams, symptoms, and in the manifold unconscious activi- 
 ties of every-day life the individual is still able to realize his 
 wishes. 
 
 Consider for a moment a child who is little acquainted with 
 the force of repression. I once observed a little girl of about 
 four years of age who took a fancy to a little wagon that 
 another child was playing with. She went directly up to her, 
 got hold of the string and wanted to take away the little cart, 
 but at the owner's loud protests, the nurse soon hurried up 
 and compelled her to leave. The little girl's mother repri- 
 manded her in these words, "You must not do that, that's 
 not yours, that's the other little girl's wagon." Jane cried 
 so bitterly that her mother finally gave her some chalk to play 
 with. Presently she drew some figure on the sidewalk and 
 pointing to it, cried : "Here's a little wagon." I can assure 
 you there was hardly any resemblance to the real object, but 
 there was enough likeness there to impress the child. In
 
 164 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 other words, the little girl actually realized her wish; she 
 now had that play toy that she wanted so badly. 
 
 A little girl continued to cry for candy until she finally 
 fell asleep. She awoke the next morning crying and when 
 asked for the reason, said that some one took away her box 
 of chocolate almonds ; she insisted that she had them in bed. 
 She was only a little over two years old and was barely able 
 to talk. Undoubtedly the child dreamed that she had a big 
 box of chocolate almonds, thus actually realizing her wish, 
 and unable to distinguish between dream and reality, cried 
 on awaking. 
 
 As the child grows older, however, one may observe how 
 the wish becomes more and more distorted in the dream. 
 There are more and more complex mechanisms appearing 
 that reveal that the child's nature is growing more and more 
 comprehensive; so long as its mode of reaction was simple, 
 its dreams were simple. There is no difficulty in analyzing a 
 child's dream below the age of five ; it is later that the force 
 of repression begins to manifest itself. It is noteworthy 
 that it develops also at this time a sense of humor. As 
 we have shown above, humor and wit are nothing but 
 modes of obtaining pleasure from a distortion of words and 
 ideas, and as long as the child is young, it has no need for 
 them. When a child bursts out in laughter, it does so be- 
 cause some one else laughs, it is not a spontaneous activity 
 with it. Gradually children develop more ideas and repress 
 considerably more; laughter is then the result of a com- 
 plicated stimulus. In my walks with my little girl in the 
 park, I used to take her to a place where horses were usually 
 watered. For about a year, every time I passed it, I would 
 remark: "Here we bring the 'autos' to be watered," to 
 which she answered nothing. One day I made the same re- 
 mark, and she looked at me quizzically, smiled and said : 
 "Autos don't have to be watered." When she came home
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 165 
 
 she told her mother of the funny thing I had said. It is 
 significant that her dreams at this period began to assume a 
 distorted aspect ; she already showed all the marks of a com- 
 plex mind; the associations were no longer simple. 
 
 The dream assumes, then, a more and more complex and 
 distorted character as the child grows older. Thus a little 
 boy is in the Zoological garden, and seeing a tiger for the 
 first time in his life, is very much attracted by the animal 
 and remarks to his father, "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a 
 tiger home?" The father tells him that such a thing would 
 be altogether impossible in an apartment. The next morning 
 the boy tells his father how he dreamed that they had five 
 little tigers in the bird cage. So you see, since, as it ap- 
 peared to him, the difficulty lay merely in the immensity of 
 the animal, he solved it in the dream by appreciably re- 
 ducing its size. When this boy was a year older he wanted 
 a pony. He asked his grandfather to buy him one and the 
 old man said that he would try to do so ; but apparently he 
 never meant it seriously, for when Christmas came, the boy 
 had to go without one and his disappointment was keen. 
 His father explained to him that the old man was only 
 joking, for he could not afford the purchase. Then the little 
 boy dreamed that he had a pony, and it was lame and he did 
 not want it. You see how he reconciled himself now. 
 Thus, then, as the child grows older, the dream becomes 
 more and more complex, and consequently with it, the wish 
 expression. 
 
 The following dreams illustrate remarkably well the essen- 
 tial point that I am trying to bring home to you, namely that 
 the dream, in the final analysis, is nothing but a concrete 
 visualization of a hidden wish. The first of these was 
 brought to me by a very active and intelligent woman, and 
 runs as follows : "I was in a train and had a baby wrapped 
 up in a blanket, and a negro nurse. The baby was sleeping
 
 1 66 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 at the foot of the bed. I was in bed. The nurse was sitting 
 on a bench in front. There came people, — a whole crowd 
 of them — from a certain club, and I said I Jtad to nurse the 
 baby. I looked to see whether he was azvake because he 
 had been so very quiet. I saw that the child had a man's 
 face; he smiled at me and said, 'I can wait, I am not 
 hungry!' " 
 
 Now the dream appeared strange and comical to the 
 dreamer. When she had related it to me, she laughed and 
 observed, "Isn't that funny, I wonder what you can make out 
 of it?" Knowing the patient well, it was no difficult 
 matter to interpret the dream. She informed me that the 
 previous evening she gave a dinner to a gentleman who was 
 lecturing at this club of which we hear in the dream. It is 
 an association which she founded about twenty years ago 
 for the advancement of child-study, and its demands upon 
 her time and attention were very great. Most of the duties 
 devolved upon her, and she was therefore kept constantly 
 busy. She heaved a sigh of relief when the dinner was 
 over, and bewailed her lot to her husband who remarked: 
 "It's about time they got some one else to do the work. 
 The association is now grown up and I should think there 
 would be a great many others who would take your place." 
 That was what she really wished. We now see how in- 
 geniously the idea is represented : the baby in the dream is 
 this association devoted to child-study which she has founded 
 and which she now desires to be sufficiently grown up to take 
 care of itself and relieve her of her many duties. She 
 wonders whether the child was awake, "he was so quiet:" 
 we see here her wish that the association would not tax so 
 much of her time. And further, when she looks at the child 
 she finds that he is grown up ; he says "I can wait, I am not 
 hungry." We see here the concrete visualization of what 
 her husband said, "the association is grown up and could get
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 167 
 
 along without you." The dream thus realizes her wish : the 
 association is grown up and can get along without her con- 
 stant attention ; the baby can get along without her constant 
 nursing and care : "I can wait, I am not hungry," he assures 
 her. 
 
 Miss W., a college student of about twenty, related to me 
 the following dream: "I saw Apollo embracing Venus de 
 Milo, and then Apollo stabbed her in the breast." As we 
 look at the dream, it does not seem to represent a wish, and 
 what is more, it does not contain the dreamer. Before pro- 
 ceeding any further, then, permit me at once to impress upon 
 your mind that whenever you cannot find the dreamer, look 
 for him under the guise of the dream's central or predomi- 
 nant character. That is the only way to get at the heart of 
 the situation. If the dreamer is a man, he is concealed in the 
 hero of the dream, if a woman, in the heroine. Remember 
 also that it makes no difference whether he is represented by 
 human beings or by animals. A man, for example, told me 
 yesterday how he dreamed that two cats were engaged in a 
 boxing match, how, strange to say, they were all the while 
 exchanging bitter words, and how finally the smaller cat 
 succeeded in "knocking out" the bigger opponent. When 
 we resorted to continuous association, the dreamer recalled a 
 scene he witnessed on the day before the dream, in the college 
 gymnasium, in which two men were boxing; one was heavy 
 and tall, the other was light, and quick as a "cat." The 
 latter, because of his agility, "knocked out" his adversary. 
 If I were to describe to you the dream in full, you would 
 readily see that the dreamer identified himself with the suc- 
 cessful boxer; he takes, therefore, a situation in which he 
 overcomes an individual whom he would like to "knock out" 
 in reality, and because of the peculiarly intimate relation in 
 his mind between the agility of the boxer and a cat, he 
 transforms it entirely into a fight between two cats.
 
 1 68 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 In this intimate relation existing between the dreamer and 
 the central character in the dream there is a marked analogy 
 to the relation that we find between the author and his work. 
 In the final analysis we may say that a book invariably 
 describes directly or indirectly the author. He is always the 
 central figure in the story, and if like Bernard Shaw he can 
 talk under five or ten characters it merely shows that he is 
 by just that much the more gifted and versatile author. The 
 dominant ideas expressed are his ideas, they may be traced 
 back ultimately to the one source, — his own personality. 
 That is why the hero overcomes generally all vicissitudes, 
 he is never vanquished, for unless, of course, the author is 
 masochistic, he does not wish to die or be conquered. In 
 this connection I cannot help but relate to you a case on 
 which a lawyer consulted me some years ago. The story 
 received quite a bit of notoriety in New York. A young 
 woman entered suit against her elderly, wealthy husband for 
 separation and alimony. She was said to be of a shady repu- 
 tation and merely desired to get rid of him, so that she could 
 live with another man. The respondent's lawyer was anxious 
 to know whether I could do anything to help him. Among the 
 things he had with him was a typewritten manuscript which 
 was written by the young woman ; it was a story that she in- 
 tended for publication. When I read it, I noted quite a 
 number of significant things from which one was able to 
 draw many conclusions. For one thing, I felt quite con- 
 vinced that the authoress was carrying on an amour with 
 the head waiter in some New York restaurant, for it was 
 nothing short of such stuff that she fashioned her hero and 
 what was just as significant, the restaurant that she de- 
 scribed tallied remarkably with any one of ours on Broad- 
 way. When I expressed my mind in the matter to the 
 lawyer, I learned that it was just such a "fellow" that was
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 169 
 
 suspected as the paramour. Following this clue, detectives 
 soon completely corroborated my conclusion. 
 
 Following, then, this rule as to the dreamer's place in the 
 dream, I could at once see the character behind whose skin, 
 so to say, Miss W. lay concealed, I knew that Venus must 
 undoubtedly represent the dreamer. To my query as to 
 what she knew of the ancient goddess she replied tersely: 
 "Oh! I just love her!" She then continued to inform me 
 that she had a picture of Venus both in her room at college 
 and at home. I could now plainly see why she identified 
 herself with her. Upon investigating further, I found that 
 Miss W. would often argue quite warmly with her room 
 mate at college when they both undressed on retiring as to 
 who of the two resembled Venus more, and that the final 
 decision was in the former's favor. We thus see how she 
 actually identified herself with Venus. 
 
 By way somewhat of a digression, I may remark that I 
 have always found it instructive to question people as to 
 whom in history they consider their greatest personage, 
 their ideal character. There is, of course, the underlying 
 assumption here that the individual who represents this 
 idea is the one with whom we consciously or unconsciously 
 identify ourselves. In a little paper that I have written on 
 the subject 1 I have pointed out that most of the persons 
 whom I have questioned mentioned Napoleon as their ideal 
 character; and though 60% of them were Christians only 
 two mentioned Jesus. Over 90% of those whom I ques- 
 tioned took individuals like Napoleon as their ideal type; 
 Lincoln took second place to him. But we must bear in 
 mind that the latter was far from being a weakling, that, 
 on the other hand, he was more than in one sense, an un- 
 usually strong man. I have drawn some significant con- 
 clusions from the data I have thus collected and have des- 
 
 1 The Empathic Index, Medical Record, Feb., 1920.
 
 170 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 ignated the individual's particular answer as his "Emphatic 
 Index." The latter shows the character one identifies him- 
 self with, whom one tries to emulate, you might say, uncon- 
 sciously. There is no doubt that Napoleon represents the 
 very acme of primitivity ; and the secret of the profound 
 fascination that he exerts over us lies undoubtedly in the 
 fact that he is an embodiment of those very things that we 
 unconsciously and even consciously admire. There are 
 many other interesting considerations about the emphatic 
 index that we might dwell on, but for our purpose now I 
 merely wish to point out that when a person states that he 
 most admires this or that character, then it is that character 
 after whom he desires to be modelled, or whom he desires 
 to emulate, — like master like man, as it is said. 
 
 It is quite evident, then, that Miss W. wished to look like 
 Venus. Now it is natural that if Venus is going to have an 
 affaire de coeur, it cannot be with a common mortal of to- 
 day, it has to be with Apollo. When I asked her to tell me 
 something of Apollo, she said : "Well, I can tell you the 
 story about him from mythology." I asked her to describe 
 how he looked in the dream and she replied : "Just like that 
 lieutenant I told you about." The latter was a young man 
 with whom she had danced the night before. When she 
 had described Apollo I found that she had at least a half 
 dozen men in that one character. In other words, this 
 Apollo of hers was indeed a very modern gentleman ; he was 
 a condensation, a fusion of a great many individuals whom 
 she knew. This is nothing unusual. Ask a man, for in- 
 stance, to describe his ideal woman and he will draw on ever 
 so many women to describe her ; she must be as tall as Miss 
 so-and-so, have hair as Miss Brown's, etc. One man to 
 whom I put the question actually had no less than the attri- 
 butes of fifteen women in his conception of his ideal wife. 
 Miss W. met the lieutenant with whom she associated Apollo
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 171 
 
 at a war camp sociable where the men who were presently 
 to leave for the war were entertained. Flushed and stimu- 
 lated by the dance, she came home, feeling a sense of "pity" 
 for this aviator who, in his full manhood and strength, was 
 going forth to the war, perhaps never to return ; and indeed, 
 did he not express that very sentiment to her himself? He 
 had taken her home on the night of the dance and on parting, 
 asked her to kiss him good-by, but she had refused. Of 
 course, later, on retiring to bed, she was sorry that she had 
 denied him that request. We may thus see that the whole 
 scene had a distinct erotic setting. Analysis reveals that the 
 dream represented the realization of a wish which could 
 just as well have been open. If the young woman had not 
 been brought up in the manner that she was, she could have 
 consciously thought to herself, "Yes, I am very pleased with 
 the lieutenant and how I do wish he were here to court me." 
 But such was her moral training at home that she did not 
 dare think of such a thing: She was trained to regard such 
 a thought as immoral and ugly. And so in repressing this 
 very thought, she has this particular dream. I should add 
 that she awoke markedly excited and with a feeling of palpi- 
 tation of the heart. We may accordingly designate her 
 dream as one of anxiety, and like all dreams of this type, it 
 denoted gross sex, physical sex. The young woman never 
 consciously, of course, thought of that in the waking state; 
 all that she was aware of was the usual stimulation that any 
 refined and modest girl would experience on a similar oc- 
 casion. 
 
 The question now presents itself : What does the dream 
 represent? To answer this, we must turn our attention for 
 a moment to a brief consideration of a highly interesting psy- 
 chological mechanism often encountered in unconscious men- 
 tation like dream and myths. Whenever we wish to speak 
 in the waking state about any delicate situation that refers to
 
 172 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the lower part of the body, we displace it to the upper part 
 of the body. A woman suffering from some digestive dis- 
 turbance, will usually declare, when questioned about her 
 condition, that she merely has a cold. Instead of telling the 
 truth, menstruating women will very often veil their con- 
 dition by some such general remark as that they are ill-dis- 
 posed, or that they have a cold or throat trouble. In other 
 words, they show a mechanism which is well known in symp- 
 toms and dreams, namely, the displacement from below to 
 above. If we bear in mind now that the dream simply 
 represented a situation below the waist-line, we can readily 
 see its concealed meaning; it was a gross sex dream, the 
 stabbing denoting coitus, a situation which no woman of her 
 type would ever have allowed herself to think of in the 
 waking state. But as we have said again and again, it does 
 not matter whether one thinks of these things consciously. 
 Nature demands expression of these powerful emotional and 
 instinctive forces at a certain age in life, and whether we 
 are consciously aware of them or not — particularly, if we 
 are not — they manifest themselves in Just such ways. We 
 find such an anxiety dream about being stabbed, all because 
 to the average cultured, unmarried woman, coitus and every- 
 thing directly or indirectly associated with it are painted in 
 horrible colors ; women are all made to feel that it entails 
 very much pain, and particularly if it is illicit, that it repre- 
 sents an experience almost equivalent to death. Those were, 
 then, the feelings that fleeted through the woman's uncon- 
 scious mind and that found concealed expression in the 
 dream. Thus the dream is not at all as mysterious as we at 
 first might have thought; its deeper meaning becomes clear 
 to us, if we only understand the mechanisms which one has 
 to look for in any unconscious mentation. 
 
 Consider with me now the following dream related to me 
 by a patient: "1 was discussing some business deal with a
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 173 
 
 prospective partner; I listened in silence and then said: 
 'You cant put that over on me.' I said that because he put 
 his foot on my knee. I got hold of him by the leg, threzv 
 him around and right over my head; he fell on his head to 
 the ground and broke his neck. He was dead. I then went 
 out and found my mother because I was very much afraid; 
 I feared that I would be arrested." 
 
 Here, of course, there is no difficulty in rinding the chief 
 actor ; he certainly cannot be the dead man, he must be the 
 dreamer himself. The man who related to me the dream 
 was an officer who had just recently returned from the war ; 
 he told me that he was seeking new business connections, as 
 his old association was not of the kind that he desired, that 
 he felt that now he was back, it was the opportune time to 
 make a new and better start. With this view he had dis- 
 cussed the matter with different people. The determinant of 
 the dream was a conference, then, with a prospective 
 partner on a new business venture ; we find here the clue to 
 the dream. When I questioned him about the action in the 
 dream — throwing the man down and breaking his head, — 
 he replied that he could only recall the following: 
 "When I was at college on the football team I played end. 
 The particular year that I have in mind the other team was 
 much heavier than ours and they beat us very badly. The 
 score was, — well, I am ashamed to tell it to you even now — 
 48-0." Mark how deeply he felt over the incident, though 
 it was now many years since it had occurred. Then he con- 
 tinued to inform me that the next year they played the same 
 team, and knowing the terrible defeat they suffered at its 
 hands previously, they practiced a great deal and succeeded 
 in beating the rival team. He related how, when the latter 
 began to repeat its old tactics, he was all prepared for them, 
 how he always succeeded in throwing over his opponent, and 
 how he incapacitated one of the adversaries for the rest of
 
 174 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the game. In other words, the second year he won; the 
 first year he was badly beaten. I asked him about his 
 mother in the dream and he went on to say that the game 
 was so extremely rough that his mother who came to see it, 
 was at the very beginning of the game so disturbed and 
 frightened that she had to leave the stand and sat apart 
 crying, fearing that something serious would inevitably re- 
 sult from such a rough and tumble. As a matter of fact, 
 only three of the original players went through with the 
 game: as for himself, he became delirious and was in such 
 a serious condition when finally brought out after the game 
 that his mother had actually to take him in hand and nurse 
 him back to life, as it were. 
 
 The question is, "Why should all these things be bound up 
 with the dream?" As you see, there is a similar situation 
 now ; he was in business and considered it a failure ; he 
 wanted something new. He is about to go into a new line 
 of work ; and the same situation of suffering a defeat before 
 and now taking up something new in which he was to be as 
 successful as in the second football game, or, in other words, 
 in which he was to win, presents itself. He succeeds so 
 well that he "knocks" out his partner at once! "Putting 
 something over him," as he expressed it, is actually true, it 
 is actually acted out in the dream : "the partner put his foot 
 on my (the dreamer's) knee;" we have an actual picture of 
 it in the dream. Here you see that the whole past associated 
 with the football game is symbolic of the present situation; 
 in other words, he was a failure the first time, a winner the 
 second time. Now the idea in his mind is: "I would like 
 to form a partnership in which I am successful ;" and as it is 
 an anticipation dream, he sees himself already winning, i. e., 
 acting as he did in the football game in which he was not at 
 all concerned if he killed his opponent or not, provided he 
 was successful.
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 175 
 
 The above dream clearly reveals the three strata of every 
 dream, — first the present (trying to get into a new business) ; 
 second, the past (the present situation becomes associated 
 with a similar situation in the past. We must remember 
 that there are so many experiences that occur in one's life 
 that there is no situation of to-day that will not revive some 
 similar situation in the past) ; third, the remote past or in- 
 fantile. There is no dream, however simple, that does not 
 show these three strata. Your dream to-day touches di- 
 rectly or indirectly, something of yesterday ; it is absurd to 
 think that we dream merely of some trifle that is only of 
 importance to the immediate present. In the above dream 
 we see how the particular present situation was expressed 
 symbolically by some situation of the past ; and when we go 
 further with the analysis, we find that the same tracks, as it 
 were, existed in the person's childhood. At this earlier 
 period he had an older brother who constantly dominated 
 him, "put it over him," and he was thus prepared, we might 
 say, to meet similar situations later in life. That is why it 
 is so important that you understand these mechanisms ; for 
 when, as parents, you find that a child is handicapped in this 
 way, it will be your duty to take a special attitude toward the 
 problem ; you must not allow the older child to dominate the 
 younger one. As teachers, you must always see to it that the 
 child who is considerably younger than the average should 
 not be placed in a class of older children, even if it is up to 
 the mark intellectually. Children should mix with only those 
 of their own mental and physical equipment, and that is 
 usually only possible with those of the same age. The so- 
 called smart child that is put together with considerably older 
 children is seriously harmed thereby ; when he grows up he 
 is forever harassed by a feeling of inferiority. I have seen 
 many people who have gone through school at the age of, 
 let us say, fourteen or fifteen, when they should have gone
 
 i 7 6 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 to sixteen and seventeen ; they were intellectually precocious, 
 but emotionally they were always handicapped. They were 
 called "Shorty" or "Kid" at school and it was in such emo- 
 tional states that they remained throughout life, because 
 they saw the school situation everywhere, whether it really 
 existed or not; they followed the path of the acquired 
 tendency. As I have reiterated so frequently here, cer- 
 tain tracks are laid out from the very beginning and the in- 
 dividual always follows them. In brief, one might say that 
 our present acts if not exact reproductions of, are certainly 
 analogous to, the past, they are, so to speak, symbolic of the 
 past. 
 
 In the beginning of our course we pointed out that such 
 
 imperfect analogies, such symbolic expressions as we find in 
 
 dreams are found also in symptoms. It matters 
 
 Dreams and , , , . , , 1.1 
 
 symptoms not how bizarre, how seemingly senseless the pa- 
 Ajiaiog-ous t j ent ' s symptom may be, it has a definite meaning 
 in his life, it bears an intimate relation to his inner problems 
 and conflicts ; and it is only by understanding it that we can 
 comprehend and evaluate his attitude toward the world. 
 
 Years ago Miss R., a young woman around the early 
 twenties, was brought to me by her mother. The history of 
 the case was that for months she had been very depressed; 
 she ate very little and spent most of her time in crying; she 
 suffered from insomnia and thought of suicide. She was 
 seen by many physicians some of whom designated her con- 
 dition as nervousness, others as insanity. I spoke to the 
 parent before I saw the patient. She talked about the 
 daughter's condition in the characteristic fashion of the 
 grieved and devoted mother, and remarked sadly: "It's too 
 bad, Doctor, such a fine girl! She always stayed at home, 
 never went out with the boys and was so well-behaved ; and 
 now she has been sick so long." When I turned to the girl
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 177 
 
 and asked her why she was so depressed, she began to cry, 
 and upon urging her to speak, she declared that she was 
 unworthy, that she had committed all kinds of transgressions. 
 Upon being pressed for further explanation, she replied that 
 she had drowned some pups; whereupon the mother im- 
 mediately interposed, "But, Doctor, that happened when she 
 was a little bit of a girl, about twenty years ago, and I am 
 sure she did not do it." However that may be, there was 
 no need for the mother to attempt to exonerate her daughter, 
 for the moment I learned that this incident went ever so 
 many years back, I had all good reason to pause and wonder 
 why a person should cry to-day over what had occurred 
 twenty years ago, and what, up to a few months ago, she 
 never gave the slightest thought to. Moreover, such epi- 
 sodes are rarely impressive to the extent of being taken up 
 so many years later in life. 
 
 A patient like Miss R. may be variously diagnosed ; she 
 may be said to be merely nervous ; some designated her con- 
 dition as manic depressive insanity, by which we mean that 
 she suffered from a form of emotional disturbance which 
 comes in certain cycles, periodically, as we said previously; 
 sometimes the patient is maniacal, sometimes depressed. In 
 this particular case there was no history of any previous at- 
 tacks, nor was there anything in her family to justify that 
 there was a tendency to such attacks, as one usually finds in 
 the real cases of manic depressive insanity. After observing 
 her for a week I diagnosed her condition as a case of anxiety 
 hysteria. 
 
 When we attempt to help the patient, we must depend in 
 large measure upon his cooperation and treat the symptom 
 just as we treat a dream. Now the dream that we remember 
 we call the "manifest" dream ; in analyzing it we are aiming 
 to get at its "latent" content. The manifest dream may re- 
 quire perhaps just two lines to describe, but when we begin
 
 178 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 to take the associations to it, or in other words, to discover 
 its "latent" content, we may have to write ten pages or even 
 more. The same thing holds true of symptoms. You see a 
 patient in the insane asylum hallucinating; she hears voices. 
 Ask her who it is that is talking to her and she will inform 
 you that it is "Mr. Brown." Upon investigation you will 
 find that the latter had paid her attention and that she was 
 in love with him ; now she is hallucinating, thinking that he 
 is speaking to her. You find the "latent" content in order to 
 determine the nature and mechanism of the patient's 
 symptom. 
 
 I saw Miss R. for a week or two ; she would always come 
 with her mother and after each interview, the parent would 
 come into my consulting room in the characteristic, appre- 
 hensive manner of a mother and would remark, in passing: 
 "Isn't it terrible, Doctor, that such a misfortune should 
 befall such a nice girl ! She never went out with boys, she 
 was always so well-behaved !" I began to feel that the 
 mother was laying undue emphasis on her daughter's being 
 such a "nice" girl. I had no doubt whatsoever that she 
 actually believed what she said and as for myself, I had no 
 reason to question its veracity, but I was just struck by the 
 emphasis. We say in our work that there is a definite re- 
 lation between the "noopsyche" and the "thymopsyche," be- 
 tween the mind and the emotions ; they are directly pro- 
 portional. In other words, if in speaking to you here I try 
 to impress you with certain facts, I do not act like a person 
 who would inform you that there is a fire in the building; 
 the emotional element would be disproportionate to the idea 
 involved. With this key of undue emphasis, then, I began to 
 suspect that there must be something behind the mother's 
 assurance. One could see that the mother in repeating those 
 words to me was really assuring herself ; that she un- 
 doubtedly reacted to an unconscious doubt about her
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 179 
 
 daughter's proper behavior. So I began to work on this 
 theory, following the well known detective formula, "cher- 
 chez I'homme." I began accordingly to inquire into the 
 patient's love life, but she was reluctant to speak about it. 
 She simply assured me that she was leading the usual 
 average life. To my question whether she had a love affair 
 she showed an unusual emotional reaction; she burst into 
 tears and as I was unable to calm her the seance had to be 
 ended. The next time she came I began the analysis again 
 and again she began to cry ; but emotions are exhaustible, so 
 presently her tears were spent and she began to talk. 
 
 In analyzing her symptoms, I asked myself : "What are 
 the elements that enter into it?" or in other words, "why 
 does this woman cry to-day over an episode of twenty years 
 ago?" Every emotion that a person experiences must have 
 some reason for its existence, and if you cannot find that 
 reason in the present, you may be quite sure that the emotion 
 is displaced to some situation to which it does not strictly 
 belong, but with which it has become connected by some 
 direct or indirect association. Now whenever an emotion 
 has to be displaced, it simply means that it cannot remain 
 with the original episode, but must be transferred to some 
 other situation. There was no reason for the woman's cry- 
 ing over a trifling and insignificant episode that occurred 
 far back in her childhood. One might dislike to witness 
 pups being drowned, but there is no reason why one should 
 continue to wail over it for months, after it was seemingly 
 forgotten for about twenty years. I was urged, then, to the 
 conclusion that the episode relating to the pups was only a 
 concealing memory, it was a memory which she brought to 
 the surface and retained in consciousness simply because a 
 similar episode occurred in the present which had to be con- 
 cealed. When we analyze the episode we find that it in- 
 volves essentially the destruction of young life, pups, by
 
 180 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 water. That is its intrinsic significance. Now just as in 
 the last dream that we have considered, the present situation 
 showed a direct analogy to some situation in the past, a 
 business proposition became identified by analogy with a 
 football game, so we have to discover in the symptom some 
 fundamental element that it may have in common with the 
 early childhood reminiscence. The main element in the 
 symptom that one should seek as an analogy would be some 
 form of destruction of life, associated somehow with water, 
 which must have occurred later in this young woman's life, 
 because we are always deeply affected and stirred by some 
 present, not by some past circumstance. I told her ac- 
 cordingly that I suspected that she had some sexual trouble, 
 that it had something to do with an abortion or some similar 
 experience ; whereupon she disclosed to me the whole state of 
 affairs. She informed me that she kept company with a 
 young man who would regularly call at her home, that when, 
 to her great dismay, she found herself pregnant and in- 
 formed him about it, he upbraided and repulsed her, accus- 
 ing her of having had sexual relations with some other man. 
 She pleaded with him and he finally took her to a midwife 
 who performed an abortion. But that did not end here. 
 Following this, she was compelled to treat herself with 
 douches, and as she did not know how to take them they 
 caused her considerable trouble and worriment. Add to this 
 the fact that the entire affair had to be concealed from her 
 mother and you can readily imagine in what a pitiable plight 
 the poor girl found herself. When things were settled 
 presently, from a medical viewpoint at any rate, she began 
 to feel the mortification of the past and it was about six or 
 eight weeks following the painful experience that she had 
 the nervous breakdown. In other words, she could no longer 
 conceal the terrible misfortune that she had to go through ; 
 it demanded some outlet, some form of expression. But as
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 181 
 
 she could not openly dwell on it, she took unconsciously- 
 some similar situation in the past and endowed it with all 
 the intensity of her actual state of feeling. Shall I repeat 
 again that whatever we experience, no matter whether it be 
 at the age of two, three or four, is always retained in the 
 mind and recalled on the appropriate occasion? The present 
 episode keeps on revolving in the mind until it falls into the 
 special track that was laid out for it, as it were, from the 
 very beginning, because of some intrinsic element of simi- 
 larity it bears to the early experience. And when we re- 
 member how many and how diverse are the impressions we 
 receive every day, we will not find it hard to see that nothing 
 that happens to-day cannot find an analogy in something that 
 has occurred in the past. Imagine the impression about the 
 drowning pups deep down in the unconscious ; here is that 
 powerful, conscious emotion which has to be repressed be- 
 cause she cannot consciously dwell on it, and naturally by 
 analogy, it falls into the track of that early childhood im- 
 pression. The same elements are there : the attributes of 
 both experiences are analogous, that is, attribute for attribute. 
 I may perhaps make this a little clearer by an illustration 
 from my own experience. Last week I was walking one 
 very frosty evening through the street with my dog when his 
 attention was attracted by sounds coming from a paper 
 bundle lying in the middle of the road. I heard a low, moan- 
 ing sound coming from it and I was naturally interested to 
 know what it could be. On coming up to it I found two 
 little pups that some hard-hearted person must have exposed 
 with the hope, apparently, that they would freeze to death 
 or be run over and killed. And here is the significant thing : 
 that very night I had a dream, the latent content of which 
 elicited a little episode that I heard related when I was a boy 
 of surely no more than eight years old. It was about some 
 peasant who was hung, because he exposed two of his own
 
 1 82 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 babies on a cold, wintry night, thus causing their death, 
 simply to please his second wife who hated them and would 
 not let them in the house. It was the first time I had heard 
 of an execution and it evidently made a profound impression 
 upon me. But as far as I know, I had never thought of the 
 episode since then. But you see the moment I saw these 
 little pups exposed to the freezing weather that early child- 
 hood experience was unconsciously revived together with all 
 its attending emotions. That is the way the mind works; 
 a present situation may evoke from the past some early im- 
 pression by reason of the former's intrinsic element of con- 
 trast or analogy to the early experience. We may see, then, 
 that in the case of Miss R. the concealing memory simply 
 represented what happened later. It is interesting to mark 
 that the latent content required about three or four weeks 
 to reveal, whereas the manifest content was always on the 
 surface. The moment the young woman began to grope 
 about unconsciously for a reason why she could cry about 
 her condition in public, that episode from the remote past 
 was revived because of its intrinsic resemblance to the 
 present situation. It was immediately invested with all the 
 emotions, and what was more, she herself did not have the 
 least thought that it was really over the later episode that she 
 was crying. She did not deliberately take up that early 
 childhood memory and wail over it ; it was all unconscious on 
 her part. What she really, then, cried over was the im- 
 mediate past, the terrible anguish and keen disappointment 
 that she recently had to bear. She had accordingly typical 
 symptoms of anxiety hysteria and to physicians who are not 
 trained in psychiatric work, her condition seemed to re- 
 semble the manic depressive type of insanity. 
 
 Thus, then, we see that the dream and the symptom show 
 the same mechanisms, both show a definite relation to the
 
 THE DREAM: ITS FUNCTION AND MOTIVE 183 
 
 inner life of the person, both are incursions into conscious- 
 ness from the unconscious, and that, in fine, it is necessary to 
 get at what we call their "latent" contents to grasp their es- 
 sential significance and meaning.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 
 
 We have discussed thus far dreams that either represent 
 open wishes, like convenient dreams, or are hidden realiza- 
 Anxiety tions of a repressed wish. The latter type is of 
 Dreams course the more usual and I have given you a 
 number of examples of it. There is another form of dreams 
 which realizes fears, as it were, and which we call anxiety 
 dreams ; we say that the anxiety there replaces the libido 
 or the desire. The individual is overwhelmed with a sense 
 of terror, he wakes up terrified and trembling. It is the sort 
 of dream which is commonly known as a nightmare, and to 
 one unacquainted with the deeper mechanisms of dream 
 formation it does not seem to represent a wish. In order to 
 understand it, it is necessary to understand what we mean 
 by anxiety. 
 
 Anxiety or fear is found in two forms. In the normal 
 form, it is a protective mechanism which is found in every 
 individual. The child is endowed with a certain amount of 
 fear from its very birth. It is needless to say that an 
 animal's life would be seriously jeopardized if it knew no 
 fear. But there is another type of fear or anxiety mani- 
 festing itself in neurotic disturbances, that we recognize as 
 being distinctly abnormal. Take, for instance, the case of a 
 man who is afraid to go out into the street for fear lest he 
 be run over ; he realizes too well how absurd and ill- 
 grounded is his apprehension, but nilly willy, he is afraid to 
 leave the house. Another person may be afraid to go near a 
 
 184
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 185 
 
 window, lest he jump out. Of course, it is perfectly natural 
 for the average person to experience some sense of uneasi- 
 ness perhaps when standing by a high open window, but he 
 is not going to be apprehensive to the point where he actually 
 fears to go near it ; yet in some nervous disturbance, a person 
 will under no circumstances go near a window, because he is 
 afraid of falling out. Likewise, some people may refuse to 
 cross bridges : "Suppose the bridge breaks," they will argue. 
 They may be well-trained engineers and realize that that is 
 impossible or most improbable, but they are fearful despite 
 all assurance. The fear, in other words, is distinctly patho- 
 logical. 
 
 When we analyze cases of phobias and anxiety states we 
 find that it is not the immediate particular situation, that, 
 to be more explicit, it is not the perception of the probable 
 immediate danger that is the cause of the fear, but some 
 altogether different and basic condition ; in other words, that 
 the anxiety is merely displaced from a condition to which it 
 properly belongs to an altogether different idea. We have 
 already noted this displacement of anxiety when we spoke 
 about the psychology of the fear of burglars. It was ob- 
 served also that this fear is usually found among women who 
 are suffering from a lack of sexual outlet. We saw that 
 what lies back of it is nothing but the unconscious craving for 
 gross or physical sex ; but as the woman cannot speak about 
 it openly, the repressed craving unconsciously attaches itself 
 to some analogous situation that can be openly dwelt on, — 
 an illicit intrusion into one's private room for which she 
 cannot be held responsible. It is only a disguised expression 
 of the real craving. The biological demands of life crave for 
 an outlet, but the individual has been so well trained by 
 society, or in other words, the repression has been carried to 
 such a point that she would not dare even admit the real
 
 1 86 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 situation to herself. The craving manifests itself, therefore, 
 in this disguised form. 
 
 As I have reiterated so frequently in the past, it matters 
 very little how exacting and scrupulous may be our moral 
 teachings and requirements, there are the actual biological 
 laws or demands of the human being that are of paramount 
 consideration. Biology teaches us that as the individual 
 grows older, it becomes more and more patent what his mis- 
 sion in this world is to be, — namely, to mate and propagate 
 his kind. This sexual function, as it is generally termed, 
 appears from the very beginning of our existence, and as- 
 sumes more and more significance and importance with the 
 advance and development of the individual. We use the 
 word "sex," of course, in its very broadest sense, as being 
 synonymous with love, but it may interest you to know, that 
 if you trace the origin of the word "love," you will find that 
 it is derived from a word in Sanskrit which denotes "lust" ; 
 it is significant that the word for "love" in Hebrew means 
 also "lust." The ancients, apparently, have made no mistake 
 about the meaning of love ; to them there was certainly a com- 
 plete identification of love and what we generally consider, 
 with no little degree of disparagement, as being grossly physi- 
 cal or sensual, or sex. It is only with the advance of Christian 
 civilization that this marked contrast has grown up, that one 
 speaks about sex as something base and ugly, and love as that 
 divine fire of which the poet speaks so eloquently. But as a 
 matter of fact, love and sex are one and the same thing; we 
 cannot have one without the other. It is useless to delude 
 ourselves into the belief that one side of the fact is sublime, 
 while the other that has to do with the service of propaga- 
 tion is low and degrading. Of course, there is just this 
 much to be said, — the modern individual cannot use any of 
 his functions in the manner of our primitive ancestors, and 
 our behavior in mating is as different from that of the
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 187 
 
 savage as the function of nourishment in modern man is 
 different from that in his primitive brother. We have 
 learned that certain things are incompatible with our en- 
 vironment. But it would be just as ridiculous to suppose 
 that we can dispense with the natural sex function on that 
 account as it would be to suppose that we can dispense with 
 food, because we do not eat like the savage. The funda- 
 mental necessity remains, and no law can be evolved that 
 will eliminate it. 
 
 To be sure, we had no quarrels with the sex function as 
 long as we considered it beautiful and sacred. We know 
 how much revered it was in early religions. Likewise the 
 child sees nothing ugly or immoral in sex; we know how it 
 shows no scruples in exposing itself naked. But it learns, 
 in time, to control and repress, to conceal what would be 
 obnoxious to its environment. And thus the sex impulses 
 have had to be concealed more and more as time went on. 
 What is more, it was found necessary with the advance of 
 civilization to defer the mating instinct. Animals begin to 
 manifest the sex impulse at an early age, as soon as they 
 begin to walk. The same is found among primitive races. 
 Thus among the natives of New Guinea many travelers have 
 reported sexual practices among children of six and seven 
 years. The situation is different in modern times: civiliza- 
 tion, has found that it is impossible to indulge in sex at the 
 time it openly manifests itself, and sexual gratification, 
 therefore, must be markedly deferred. Thus with the ad- 
 vance of centuries of civilization, particularly with the rise 
 and spread of Christianity, the sex instincts have been more 
 and more repressed, so that now the whole impulse is so 
 distorted that it appears to the individual incomprehensible 
 and baffling to the last degree, and it is actually necessary to 
 enlighten modern men and women in matters sexual. I 
 say this advisedly. But the fact remains that the urge is
 
 1 88 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 there, and whether the individual desires or no, it always 
 manifests itself. 
 
 Hence, sex in our sense is only a part of the mating im- 
 pulse which we may include in the general term love. Any 
 manifestation of the love impulse, be it in the child or the 
 adult, may be considered as a phase of sex. We may there- 
 fore explain on this same basis any phobia or pathological 
 fear even in children, except, of course, that we must bear in 
 mind that here the phobia deals with infantile love. Only 
 four or five weeks ago a little girl of ten was brought to me 
 because she was afraid that burglars might enter her room ; 
 she absolutely would not sleep alone. Formerly she was ac- 
 customed to sleep in a room all by herself; but now she was 
 so afraid that the only way to quiet her was to take her into 
 the parents' bed ; otherwise she would not fall asleep. The 
 cure consisted in just analyzing with the child frankly and 
 simply the basic sexual significance of the situation. I con- 
 fess, I was a little surprised when the little girl informed me 
 that what puzzled her so much was that her mother told her 
 about child birth, but failed to explain to her how child birth 
 started. "How does it happen that the child grows in the 
 mother's womb like a flower ?" the little girl asked me. The 
 mother had apparently related only part of the story. I ex- 
 plained to the little girl the significant aspects of the problem, 
 and it was really quite impressive to see how grateful she 
 felt for the information. "I learned so much to-day from 
 Dr. Brill," she remarked. "Why do you call him a doctor ; 
 he is more like a teacher." The child was cured after she 
 realized that her fear was nothing but her desire to have her 
 mother and father with her. She had been very much 
 coddled by the parents ; her father particularly had been too 
 lavish in his affections, he used to fondle and kiss her al- 
 together too much and now her emotions could no longer be 
 contained and welled forth overwhelmingly strong. By
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 189 
 
 helping this child to understand this, and adjusting her love- 
 life generally, the phobia disappeared. 
 
 To understand better how the direct sex demands manifest 
 themselves in the anxiety dream, it may be well perhaps to 
 consider with you in some details the three phases of sex 
 life as propounded by Prof. Freud: first, the autoerotic, 
 second the narcistic, and third the object love. The term 
 autoerotic you can readily translate into self-sufficient, self- 
 gratified, or self-adequate. The child shows a sexual life 
 from the very beginning, but it is very different, of course, 
 from that of the adult. That is only natural ; it can no more 
 experience the sex emotions like the adult than it can run 
 or talk like him. In the second stage, which begins at about 
 two and a half, or three and a half years, the child is pre- 
 dominately interested in his own body. Then we have the 
 latency period, from about four to eight, followed by the 
 prepubescent age from about eight through eleven. Now 
 comes puberty. We must bear in mind that it is during the 
 latency period that the child receives most of those impres- 
 sions which prepare it for life. To be sure, it begins to take 
 on impressions from the very beginning of its existence; 
 but it is in this period, which we may justly call the school 
 period, that it actually begins to learn how to adjust itself to 
 society. The definite phase of adjustment which we asso- 
 ciate generally with education really starts at the latency 
 period when the child begins to go to school. It has, of 
 course, already a certain adjustment as a result of its home 
 training, and the observant teacher will attest to the fact 
 that the child shows even at this early age a very character- 
 istic mode of reacting to its environment. In other words, 
 before entering school the child already has a definite adjust- 
 ment which is a product of its home development. The 
 teacher, therefore, is not to be blamed for a child's mal- 
 adjustment, because she is coping with a condition that from
 
 i 9 o PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the very outset was not strictly normal. If a child has not 
 done well up to the age of eight, it will always be a ne'er-do- 
 well ; if it is defective, its abnormality will become manifest 
 at the outset, and it will not outgrow it, as people generally 
 suppose. A child shows from the very beginning just what 
 the nature of its future adjustment will be. 
 
 It is commonly supposed that the latency period shows no 
 sex manifestations. Careful observation, however, points 
 very definitely in the opposite direction. It is a period in 
 which sex is only apparently absent ; investigate a little and 
 you will learn from teachers and parents that all kinds of 
 sexual manifestations are in evidence at that age in the class 
 room and at home. They are, of course, not so prominent ; 
 the child does not usually occupy himself with distinct sexual 
 problems. That sexual inquisitiveness of the earlier years 
 seems to have lost its keen edge; we hear no more that in- 
 sistent query, "Where do children come from?" It either 
 has received its information by the age of four or has been 
 squelched so well that it dare not ask the parents another 
 question. 
 
 The period of object love sets in at the age of nine or ten, 
 around the prepubescent age ; the boy and the girl now show 
 that they are ready to adjust themselves to the world in a 
 definite way. The child no longer shows the same reactions 
 to both sexes. At the age of puberty one observes marked 
 character changes in both sexes; it is then that the sexual 
 factors become manifest and specialized. The boy develops 
 into manhood and shows an aggressive sexual make-up, and 
 the girl, developing into womanhood evinces a passive or 
 negatively aggressive sexuality. I have collected dreams of 
 children of about the pubescent age, and it is instructive to 
 note how the dreams all showed the definite biological factors 
 that may be observed in the development of both sexes; the 
 boys' dreams always dealt with active aggressions, and the
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 191 
 
 girls' with passivity, with being pursued, caught or overcome. 
 A number of teachers collected for me dreams of pubescent 
 children, and no matter from what station of life the children 
 came the results were always the same ; their dreams all 
 showed the same characteristic biological reactions. It is 
 noteworthy that anxiety dreams are particularly prevalent 
 among girls of fourteen and fifteen; for it is at this age that 
 the girl becomes aware of the sex urge, but cannot as yet 
 place her emotions properly, she has not as yet adjusted her- 
 self to the new life. 
 
 The pubescent age is also the period when most mental 
 breakdowns start. One of the worst forms of mental 
 diseases, dementia prsecox, starts at about the ages of four- 
 teen and fifteen; probably 75% of the attacks occur between 
 the ages of fourteen and eighteen, 90% between the ages of 
 fifteen and twenty-five, the others coming later. Indeed, 
 dementia praecox has been designated by many writers as 
 an insanity of pubescence. As a specialist in nervous 
 diseases, I may say that if a child successfully tides over its 
 pubescent age, that is, the period from about twelve to fifteen 
 years, then there is no cause for apprehension. If every- 
 thing goes well at this time, it is indeed rare to find some 
 nervous or emotional breakdown in later years. In other 
 words, an adequate adjustment now means an adequate ad- 
 justment in the future. In this adjustment, of course, the 
 sexual or emotional factor is of paramount importance and 
 that is why it may be said that an individual who is not well 
 adjusted in his emotional or erotic life, remains inadequately 
 adjusted in every other phase of his existence. We may 
 posit it as a general principle that one's sex life is always re- 
 flected in the general psychic condition of the entire person ; 
 abnormal sex life always interferes with normal functioning 
 in the other spheres of life. 
 
 The biologic principles, or the direct sex demands mani-
 
 192 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 fest themselves all the time. In the dream they appear in the 
 form of anxiety or fear. Let me give you some illustra- 
 tions. A woman related to me this dream : A colored man 
 pursued her zvith a knife, and it zuas only after a long 
 struggle that she wrested the deadly zveapon from him. She 
 aivoke, terrified, her heart beating wildly. When I called 
 for associations, I learned that her mother was always afraid 
 to leave her alone at home because of the colored butler, 
 who is a quiet, inoffensive creature. When asked what 
 reason she thought her mother had for fearing to leave her 
 alone with the servant, she replied, "Well, you know I 
 read recently about colored men in the south assaulting 
 white women. Mother reads the same paper that I do and 
 must have probably read that account also, and so she must 
 be more afraid than ever." The dream is simply a realiza- 
 tion of a wish ; unconsciously the young woman's own crav- 
 ing for sex manifested itself in this concealed way. The ac- 
 count that she had read in the newspaper the day before only 
 served as a determinant for the dream ; the emotions, the un- 
 conscious craving were there all the time waiting for an 
 appropriate stimulus to call them into play. 
 
 There is thus not an event occurring in this world but 
 what calls forth some repressed emotion in the unconscious, 
 and acts as a determinant not only for dreams, but for 
 hysterical symptoms and other normal and abnormal phe- 
 nomena. Perhaps you may remember the time when there 
 was so much ado and excitement about "the poison needle," 
 when women were reported to have been taken into white 
 slavery by the thousands. Some vicious man, it was ru- 
 mored, would stick a poison needle into a girl, drag her into 
 a taxi when she fainted and hurry her off to a house of ill 
 repute. It mattered little that scientists protested that there 
 could be no such poison that would render a person uncon- 
 scious immediately. The police were kept quite active and
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 193 
 
 arrests were made, but as a matter of fact there was not a 
 single authentic case of "the poison needle" throughout the 
 United States. It was quite instructive to me to observe that 
 there was hardly a woman I was treating at that time who 
 did not tell me that she dreamed or fancied about being 
 poisoned, attacked and sold into white slavery. 
 
 The unconscious always draws upon the environment for 
 expression; it always utilizes some appropriate situation for 
 the expression of repressed emotions. I know I may shock 
 some of you by asserting that the late war offered an ex- 
 cellent outlet to some people ; that is why so many men and 
 women experienced nervous breakdowns after the armis- 
 tice was signed. I had occasion to see a few soldiers then 
 who had gone through the fighting without receiving the 
 slightest wound, but who broke down when they came on 
 board the ship bound for home. They were supposed to 
 have been "shell shocked;" but the real difficulty was that 
 they were cut off from an excellent outlet for their primitive 
 impulses. The same thing applied to those who did not 
 actively participate in the fighting ; there were quite a number 
 of women who became markedly depressed, as the soldiers 
 returned from overseas and were discharged. There was to 
 be no more prospect of working in canteens, driving am- 
 bulances, nursing the sick heroes in the hospitals. We were 
 to have no more of these sadistic or masochistic outlets. And 
 what a terrible void opened up before those women ! 
 
 In the same way the Titanic disaster acted as a marked 
 determinant for dreams. One woman related to me the fol- 
 lowing dream relating to the catastrophe: She was on the 
 ship when it was sinking; there were the terrible cries of 
 panic-stricken women and children. Then some one cried 
 out: "Women and children first." She refused to leave 
 her husband. An officer came up and tore her away from 
 him, despite her loud protests. She woke up crying, seized
 
 i 94 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 with terror. I knew this woman's history so thoroughly 
 that it was not difficult for me to see at once the meaning of 
 the dream. When I asked her for associations there was the 
 natural determinant ; she had read on the previous day how 
 the wife of a prominent man on board the Titanic actually 
 refused to be separated from her husband and bravely met 
 death with him without flinching. In the dream, as you may 
 see, the situation was quite the reverse: she was terribly 
 grieved because she was torn away from her husband. Now 
 the crux of the whole situation was that she was in love with 
 an officer who was stationed right near here ; she experienced 
 a great many struggles with herself about the whole affair ; 
 that was one of the reasons why she came to me for treat- 
 ment. Consciously, of course, she would not yield to the 
 officer, but unconsciously in the dream, she submits and we 
 see her actually separated from her husband. On the one 
 hand, then, we see the wish motive, on the other, the anxiety 
 which is merely the conflict between the two opposing psy- 
 chic forces, representing the converted libido. Thus the 
 dream strictly had little to do with the Titanic catastrophe; 
 the latter only served as the medium through which she was 
 able to give vent to her repressed emotions. 
 
 The anxiety dreams, then, show a definite form of un- 
 conscious reaction to craving, to unadjusted emotions, in 
 which the anxiety takes the place of the libido. Later on, 
 when we take up day dreaming, we shall see that some 
 women go through these mechanisms without sleeping. 
 They play with the idea consciously ; they entertain "Diirnen 
 phantasien," prostitution fancies, quite openly. Such 
 women either do not suppress or have sexually emancipated 
 themselves. The others can give vent to their unadjusted 
 emotions through unconscious mentation, and it is the 
 anxiety dream that lends itself to just that type of outlet.
 
 reason of its painful and unattainable nature. £rea fiC 
 That is why we find, upon investigation, that day 
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 195 
 
 When we delve into the mainsprings of the dream, we 
 find that it is a product of some conscious experience or 
 fancy that the individual invariably represses by 
 
 Dreams 
 
 and 
 
 Lying 1 
 
 dreams and fancies which are more or less con- 
 scious mental activities, show exactly the same mechanisms 
 as the dream, and reveal just as markedly a person's char- 
 acter and inner problem. Analysis shows that they are in- 
 variably wishes. Thus that spontaneous mental activity 
 known as "building castles in the air" enables us to gain as 
 profound an insight into the individual's deeper striving and 
 desires as the dream itself. 
 
 This intimate relation existing between the dream and 
 the day dream is found also between the dream and another 
 type of unconscious mentation which may be designated as 
 "artificial dreams." By artificial dreams we understand 
 those dreams which a person consciously makes up at the re- 
 quest of the physician. The patient is requested to make up 
 a dream by imitating what he regards as a real dream. He is 
 instructed to talk at random without guiding his thoughts. 
 The production obtained in this manner is recorded and 
 analyzed in accordance with the rules. What the patient 
 will produce for you may sound very stupid to him and may 
 seem to him to bear no relation to his own inner problems, 
 but as a matter of fact you will find, upon analyzing it, that 
 it is just as significant as an actual dream and reveals just 
 as markedly the deeper problems and conflicts in the psychic 
 life. I came upon the subject of artificial dreams in the 
 following manner : 
 
 I was treating a physician, an unmarried man, about 
 thirty years old, who was suffering from a rather deep-seated 
 psychoneurotic disturbance. He was one of those patients 
 who claim that they do not dream ; after assuring him, how-
 
 ig6 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 ever, it is merely a question of remembering the dream, he 
 came to me one morning and gave me the following dream : 
 "I was giving birth to a child, and felt very severe labor 
 pains. My friend X. acted as accoucheur (midwife) ; he 
 stuck the forceps into me more like a butcher than a physi- 
 cian. Of course," he said, "X. is not a physician, he is 
 a business man." I proceeded to analyze the dream by 
 asking the patient to tell me something about X. "He is a 
 very good friend of mine, but of late we have drifted apart," 
 he replied. I was interested to know the reason for this. 
 "I did not like some of the people in whom X. was inter- 
 ested," I learned. "Is that the only reason why you drifted 
 apart?" I continued. "I believe so." The patient then went 
 into details about his relationship with X. I observed finally : 
 "You seem to be jealous of X." "Yes, that is what X. 
 claims." "Well," I went on, "but jealousy is perfectly 
 justified only when a person of the opposite sex is concerned, 
 but you are jealous when X. talks to other men." He then 
 laughed: "You know, I always thought that this dream 
 business is claptrap. Now I can see it ; you asked me to give 
 you a dream and I thought I would make one up. I never 
 dreamed it. I was only fooling you." I must confess I was 
 a little surprised to hear this, but his apparently innocent 
 piece of fabrication revealed to me all the same the very 
 thing I was looking for all the time. A dream such as this 
 could only come from a homosexual, and indeed, from the 
 very beginning I suspected that he was an invert. I asked 
 him to go on with the analysis of the dream but he dryly 
 protested, "There's no use ; I made it up." I insisted that he 
 continue. He refused and became very angry, whereupon 
 I simply told him my analysis. "You are a homosexual, 
 and in love with Mr. X. ; only a man who identifies himself 
 with a woman dreams that he gives birth to a child." He 
 left me in quite a sullen mood, but returned very soon and
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 197 
 
 informed me that my diagnosis was correct, but that it was 
 hard for him to acknowledge that he was homosexual. 
 
 The case gave me much food for reflection. It demon- 
 strated to me very definitely that one can actually resort to 
 the analysis of artificial dreams to gain an insight into the 
 patient's psychic life. What surprised me at first was that 
 we never seemed to have thought about the matter before, 
 but upon investigating the subject, I soon found that Prof. 
 Bleuler had touched on it, stating that such artificial pro- 
 ductions are not at all impossible. Since that case, I resort 
 to artificial dreams whenever a patient fails to bring me 
 dreams, claiming that he does not dream, or whenever a 
 patient suddenly stops dreaming because of some unconscious 
 resistance. Analysis of such a dream usually brings to the 
 surface those factors which were at the base of these re- 
 sistances, which can then be removed. Of course, this is not 
 as easy as it may appear, for it is a significant fact that most 
 people who insist that they do not dream will declare just as 
 strongly that they cannot make up a dream. The same re- 
 sistances that hinder them from bringing the physician their 
 dreams prevent them also from making up dreams. There 
 is no doubt, however, that with continued urging on the 
 part of the physician, they can be led to give some produc- 
 tions. Here are a few that I have reported. 
 
 "/ do something that meets with my parents' disapproval. 
 I am afraid of my father, as if I were a child." When I 
 asked the dreamer for associations, he replied that he had 
 none, but that he would invent another dream. The latter 
 ran as follows : "I see an old woman crying. She is evi- 
 dently trying to decipher shorthand notes." He began to 
 associate and thought at once of a certain woman, a stenog- 
 rapher, his senior by five years. He had met her in a very 
 questionable environment, while carousing with friends, fell 
 in love with her and offered to marry her. She soon prom-
 
 i 9 8 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 ised to reform, took up stenography, and through his 
 influence obtained a position in his father's office. When he 
 finally spoke about her to the father, who knew nothing of 
 the woman's past, the latter at first refused his consent, but 
 later showed signs of relenting. It was then that the patient 
 himself began to doubt the wisdom of his contemplated 
 matrimonial venture. Most of his friends knew about her 
 former life, and strongly advised him against marrying her. 
 He knew that he would have to renounce all his social con- 
 nections and feared lest his father should discover the true 
 facts concerning her past. It was this conflict, coupled 
 with other factors, that revived a dormant psychoneurosis. 
 I may also add that while under treatment he consciously 
 withheld the most important facts in his love affair ; he told 
 me nothing about how he met her, or who she was. He did 
 not think it was necessary for me to know this. Indeed, 
 such things are usually passed over by the patient as being 
 trivial and unimportant; he simply does not deem them 
 worth while to relate. 
 
 The first production : "I do something that meets with my 
 parents' disapproval. I am afraid of my father as if I were 
 a child," recalled the patient's early childhood when he often 
 feared his father's wrath for wetting the bed. The under- 
 lying thought was that should he now enter into this con- 
 templated matrimony, he would again soil his bed and be 
 punished by his father. The second dream, "I saw an old 
 woman crying, etc.," expresses his wish to get rid of the 
 woman. She was indeed a poor stenographer and would 
 have been discharged long before had it not been for his 
 intercession. The dream shows that she leaves voluntarily 
 because she cannot hold a position in his family, i.e., she 
 cannot be his wife. 
 
 Another patient, Mrs. C, a young married woman suffer- 
 ing from a mild form of dementia praecox, gave me, after
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 199 
 
 strong urging, the following artificial dream. Patients of 
 the dementia prsecox type are usually very inaccessible and 
 the artificial dream is often the only way of entering into 
 their mind. "I went into a garden where there were many 
 people. One of the ladies fell in love with one of the gentle- 
 men sitting on the bench. They exchanged all sorts of 
 endearing terms until the lady proposed marriage. They 
 married and were very happy." This dream is quite simple : 
 it shows little distortion, it is a sort of open wish. As Mrs. 
 C. is a married woman the question that naturally suggests 
 itself is: "Who is the man?" Certainly he is not her own 
 husband; there would be no need for that. The dreamer 
 herself apparently is under the disguise of the lady who 
 proposed to the gentleman, in accordance with the well- 
 known principle of dream analysis, that the dreamer is 
 always the central figure in the dream. Mrs. C. was a 
 shut-in type of person, extremely inaccessible. Whenever I 
 made any efforts to question her about her intimate life, she 
 would say : "I am perfectly happy with my husband. I have 
 nothing to tell you." But when I asked her to tell me the 
 person, the "gentleman," in the dream recalled to her, she 
 immediately informed me that it was the family physician; 
 she remembered distinctly that the physician looked very 
 much like him. As she could give me very little further 
 information, I observed: "It would seem that you had an 
 amour with the physician, or that you undoubtedly desired 
 to have one." She admitted that for years she had been very 
 attached to the doctor. She did not tell me of this before, 
 because she could not see what bearing it had upon the treat- 
 ment. And yet, I must have you mark very carefully, it is 
 the conflict arising from this experience that finally precipi- 
 tated her mental condition ; it was the exciting factor of the 
 disease. 
 
 Since my experience with that first patient who deliber-
 
 2oo PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 ately attempted to mislead me by making up what he thought 
 a senseless production, I have collected quite a number of 
 artificial dreams. Though most of them are by no means 
 as simple as those I have just given you, they all may very 
 readily be analyzed ; indeed, they are easier to analyze than 
 actual dreams. 
 
 Let me say at this point that one of the objections to dream 
 analysis advanced by some investigators is that the dreamer 
 in recounting the dream consciously or unconsciously fills up 
 the gaps which originally existed in the dream and thus 
 introduces elements that strictly do not belong to it; they 
 maintain that the dream that you commit to writing is no 
 longer the real dream, a great deal of it is forgotten, and 
 much new material creeps in. But you see how this makes 
 no material difference in the analysis, for whatever the 
 dreamer inserts into the dream bears an intimate relation 
 to his own inner problems : the dreamer consciously or un- 
 consciously will always gravitate toward his own inner 
 strivings. 
 
 My experience with artificial dreams led me into quite 
 another field of investigation, the problem of lying. Con- 
 siderable study and experience convinced me that the lie, 
 like the dream, is nothing but a direct or indirect wish. 
 Every piece of fabrication, whether simple or complex, 
 represents essentially a condition that the person desires to 
 see realized. Frankly, I am sometimes pleased when a 
 patient lies to me, either quite deliberately or unconsciously ; 
 he is thereby only giving me another clue to his neurosis. 
 For every lie, even in a normal person, is but an expression 
 of the wish-motive, and deals naturally with material of 
 marked importance and interest in the individual concerned. 
 
 Lying is one of the defense mechanisms that helps the 
 individual out of difficulties. When done with that in view, 
 the lie is often designated as a "white lie." Thus we have
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 201 
 
 a double standard of lying, the "white lie" which is pardon- 
 able, and the lie made with malicious intent, or done habitu- 
 ally, just for the sake of lying. That the "white lie" is just 
 another mode of self-protection, that it has, we might say, 
 as useful a function as teeth and claws, is well borne out by 
 the fact that primitive people and lower races, like the 
 negroes and Indians, for example, invariably lie when they 
 wish to get out of some difficulty. The same condition 
 obtains among children. They invariably show a tendency 
 to fabricate. Such a tendency among children cannot be 
 considered pathological. It simply denotes a premature 
 mentality; children, as we know, have not as yet assumed 
 all the necessary ethical inhibitions and therefore follow their 
 impulses. Whenever they find themselves in any difficulty 
 they do not hesitate to get out of it through lying. Thus 
 a boy of four, having broken a dish, insisted that a servant 
 did it; an older boy, having been detected playing truant, 
 asserted that his teacher was sick. 
 
 We should always assume a more or less sensible attitude 
 to lying in children. They should be taught, of course, not 
 to do so, but it is to be expected and regarded as more or 
 less natural. They should be trained to tell the truth with- 
 out resorting to emotional outbursts, for it is certain that we 
 can always accomplish much more with the child by entering 
 into rapport with him, by gaining his confidence and love. 
 How much harm is often done by resorting to marked 
 emotionalism in our attitude toward the child's lie may be 
 seen from the following case: 
 
 Mrs. F., a woman of thirty-five, married, complained 
 among other things, of having a very strong tendency to lie. 
 As far as I could observe, she was perfectly normal mentally, 
 so that one could regard her condition as merely a bad habit. 
 But we know, from psychoanalytic study and experience, 
 that there must be something in the individual's psychic life
 
 202 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 that feeds that habit, that gives it its motive force. Apropos 
 of the symptom, her history was as follows : At the age of 
 eight she lived in a small locality where, among the very few 
 children who played with her there was a boy of eleven with 
 whom she associated very much. One day he exposed 
 himself to her, and she played sexually with him. This con- 
 tinued for a few months perhaps, when her grandmother 
 noticed it. The boy got a terrible beating and the girl re- 
 ceived a good tongue lashing, although she was more or less 
 excused as she was only a little girl. She was not allowed, 
 however, to see her companion any more. Her mother, who 
 was away at this time, presently returned and the little girl, 
 in an outburst of confidence related everything that occurred 
 during her absence, not failing to mention also the experience 
 with the little boy. Far from being pleased that her daughter 
 voluntarily and frankly revealed to her what transpired be- 
 tween the two children, she flew into a rage and beat the 
 little girl most severely, despite the fact that she had never 
 before administered any form of corporal punishment to the 
 child. She then locked her up in a room and kept her there 
 on bread and water for quite a while. Following this, she 
 continued to remind the girl all the time of the terrible 
 transgression that was committed. When twelve years old, 
 the girl attended with her mother a funeral of a boy of 
 fourteen who met with an accident and was killed. On her 
 way to the funeral, the mother observed: "When you get 
 there, you will see his parents in a state of terrible anguish ; 
 they feel heart broken at the death of their young boy, 
 snatched from them at so young an age. But do you know, 
 I would have rather seen you die than to have done what 
 you did?" That is how stupidly and deeply the mother 
 reacted to the situation. The grandmother would accord- 
 ingly remind the girl: "Now you see, if you only had kept 
 your tongue, as I told you to do." That marked a turning
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 203 
 
 point in the patient's whole life. There was a marked change 
 in her relations to her mother and to the world. She now 
 lied frequently to her parent : she actually "kept her tongue" 
 as her grandmother had wisely counselled her. And as she 
 reacted to the mother she gradually reacted to the whole 
 world; what happened was that unconsciously she was con- 
 stantly trying to rebel against her mother by no longer 
 revealing the truth as she did on that unfortunate occasion. 
 The symptom caused her much discomfort and unpleasant- 
 ness. Sometimes, for instance, she would be out socially, and 
 in speaking about some book or play would deliberately 
 distort the facts. She was conscious of it, but could do 
 nothing to correct the condition, it was a sort of obsession 
 with her. 
 
 Such cases are not at all rare. They are found among 
 people who are normal intellectually and who cannot be con- 
 sidered in any sense psychopathic. The fundamental reason 
 for the symptom may usually be traced to just such an 
 emotionally accentuated occurrence, as we have noted in 
 Mrs. F.'s case. 
 
 With the advance of age we are expected to tell the truth, 
 and the average normal person can do so to a certain extent. 
 The lies then serve a definite purpose. They are usually 
 well balanced and sometimes even very ingenious and com- 
 plicated. The same holds true in the abnormal classes; the 
 greater the intellect, the more difficult it is to detect the lie. 
 Moral idiots and superior degenerates often make such good 
 impressions that they frequently escape detection for a long 
 time, while it is simple enough to see through the lies of 
 children, of most mental defectives and insane. On the 
 other hand, the lowest type, the idiot, is usually incapable 
 of telling a lie. His extreme mental poverty allows him to 
 follow unhindered all his simple desires ; he has not enough 
 brains to formulate a lie. He is therefore honesty personified.
 
 204 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 That telling the truth among normals is considered as some- 
 thing verging on the impossible is shown by the fact that 
 one of the greatest attributes of the Father of this country 
 is that he never told a lie. As a matter of fact every normal 
 person tells a lie on certain occasions, and provided certain 
 conditions are fulfilled, it is not counted against him even if 
 he is detected. 
 
 To be called a liar, a person must not only show a frequent 
 tendency to fabricate but must also evince a certain weak- 
 mindedness in its execution. Thus a well-bred, apparently 
 intelligent woman had the reputation of being a liar. When 
 I met her for the first time, we had occasion to speak of a 
 well-known physician. She remarked that this doctor was 
 much devoted to her. "He kisses me whenever I leave the 
 office," she went on to declare. Noticing my great surprise, 
 for it was indeed an anomalous condition for me to imagine, 
 as I knew the man intimately, she added, "I am just like a 
 daughter to him." I am sure that such behavior was abso- 
 lutely foreign to him. This woman was psychopathic and 
 was well known as a habitual liar. 
 
 A doctor of this same type told me once that he worked 
 in a certain clinic in Europe with which I was very well 
 acquainted. We spoke about the professor who was at the 
 head of the department, and he remarked: "Prof. X. thinks 
 so much of me that he sent me the proof sheets of a book 
 he just wrote and asked me to correct them and make any 
 suggestions I deem fit." Every lie, like every dream, must 
 be determined by something. I knew the determinant of 
 this : the professor was actually to have given out a new 
 edition of the book referred to. "Do you mean the third 
 edition of his . . .?" I interposed. "Why, I have the book 
 home already ; it just came to me." He protested vehemently 
 that this could not be and turned away terribly piqued. Both 
 these individuals (the woman mentioned above and this
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 205 
 
 doctor) are well-known liars among their friends and ac- 
 quaintances. We have a special name for their malady, — 
 "pseudologia phantastica." People of this type have con- 
 stantly a desire to fill up the voidness in themselves. 
 
 I once had a patient who upon coming late would declare 
 apologetically: "Doctor, I am sorry I am late; I just dined 
 with the Duchess of Devonshire." At first I did not know 
 whether to believe him or not. He would go into details 
 about the Duchess, inform me who her grandmother was and 
 relate many other intimate facts. At another time he said 
 he dined with the Duke. He kept that up for a week, when 
 I discovered that there was not an iota of truth in what he 
 said. He had delusions of grandeur and tried in this way 
 to realize his abnormal wishes. He thought that he was an 
 illegitimate child and that he came from the nobility. He 
 had made a study of English nobility and was thus able to 
 play his part pretty well. I have no doubt that as time went 
 on he began to believe in the deception himself. 
 
 It is a known fact that eventually ordinary liars believe 
 their lies and thus realize their wishes. A few years ago I 
 often heard an acquaintance tell of his interesting experiences 
 in a military academy, where he said he spent a few years. 
 I was very much surprised to find years later when I 
 analyzed him that he never saw this academy. He told me 
 that at the age of ten years he was attracted to a boy, a mili- 
 tary student, and entertained a very strong wish to enter 
 this military academy. He took a great interest in military 
 life, and read much about this school, but owing to financial 
 difficulties, his ardent wish could never be realized. When 
 he applied for his first position, he boldly stated that he 
 attended this school, and as the lie remained unnoticed, he 
 stuck to it for years and finally believed that he actually 
 studied there for a long time. 
 
 In this connection, it is interesting to note that tendencies
 
 206 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 to fabricate can be produced by exogenous factors. I am 
 referring to Korsakoff's psychosis, a condition found among 
 alcoholics. Here the poison having destroyed life-long inhi- 
 bitions, the patients find it very easy to tell the most phantastic 
 and embellished adventures. They never become embarrassed 
 when brought to bay, because their mental processes are 
 paralyzed. Ask such a patient, who is confined to bed, what 
 he did in the morning and he replies most cheerfully : "I have 
 been out and walked down on Broadway and went into a 
 
 saloon on 23rd Street, met Mr , etc." And all the 
 
 time he was in bed, but he makes the story so specific that 
 one who does not know, finds it difficult not to believe him. 
 All we have to do is to give him the slightest suggestion and 
 he has a long story ready. Ask him for some money, and 
 he will at once begin to search for his trousers, though he 
 really has not a cent that he can call his own. There are 
 no inhibitions whatever, everything runs smoothly; it is a 
 state of euphoria. Indeed, we may say weak-mindedness 
 due to any cause permits ambitions to run riot, and as the 
 individual finds it impossible to realize them, he makes believe 
 to his fellow-being that he has actually accomplished all his 
 mighty deeds. In this respect, he resembles the prolific 
 dreamer who has many wishes to fulfill, but whereas the 
 latter by virtue of ethical inhibitions can only realize his 
 desires in sleep, the psychopathic liar, who has never fully 
 developed mental inhibitions, puts his wishes in operation in 
 the waking state. 
 
 Some lies manifest themselves in very peculiar ways. 
 Thus, I knew a patient, a young woman, who suddenly 
 stopped urinating. No amount of urging on the part of 
 the physicians in the sanitarium where she was treated could 
 cause her to attend to this bodily function. Sometimes she 
 maintained that she could not attend to these wants, other 
 times that she simply felt no need for them. And, strange
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 207 
 
 to say, while the doctors were seriously concerned over her 
 ailment she secretly appropriated towels and used them as 
 receptacles for her excretions, which she then threw out of 
 the window. Here the lie was determined by a reversion 
 to infantile eroticisms manifesting themselves in the desire 
 to solicit the doctor's attention to the genitals. This case 
 recalls Prof. Virchow's case of Louise Lateau, who refused 
 to take food because she maintained that she was a saint and 
 needed no nourishment. Virchow ascertained that she had 
 regular movements of the bowels and decided that she was 
 secretly taking nourishment. For, he argued, and surely 
 with good reason, that though the Lord created the world out 
 of nothing, no mortal could produce matter out of nothing. 
 Those of you who are interested in cases of this kind, will 
 find much interesting material in the police records. They 
 make up the classes of international swindlers, charlatans, 
 malingerers, etc. 
 
 The liar shows a definite relation to the born criminal from 
 whom he differs only in degree. The latter being usually 
 lower in the mental scale does not even have to lie; he sees 
 something that he wants and straightway sets out to get it. 
 And that is why, as we have pointed out previously, the 
 criminal dreams considerably less than the average normal 
 person : he actually realizes many more of his wishes than 
 his normal brother. 
 
 The liar is also related to the poet, who may be called an 
 artificial dreamer or a convention fabricator. Prof. Prescott 
 in his interesting study of Poetry and Dreams expresses 
 himself as follows on the origin of poetry: "It represents 
 the fulfillment of our ungratified wishes or desires." The 
 same mechanism is found in habitual liars, and to a lesser 
 degree, in every normal person. What is the distinction 
 between them? The normal dissatisfied person contents 
 himself with fancy formation which he keeps to himself very
 
 208 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 carefully. He does not wish to reveal his secret desires 
 because he is ashamed to do so and, what is more, he knows 
 that we will not be interested in them. The liar has never 
 outgrown his infancy, so that even as an adult his fancies, 
 his wishes are of a childish nature; he is unable to adapt 
 himself to reality, so that he constructs his world on the 
 infantile foundation. His fancies are therefore character- 
 ized throughout by extreme egotism. He is the hero of 
 every adventure, the "sine qua non" in every situation. That 
 is why he repels us, for we do not like to see another indi- 
 vidual behave so ail-importantly. The poet or writer over- 
 comes these difficulties by toning down the egotistic character 
 of his fancies. He conceals them under the hero, and that 
 is why his productions give us pure aesthetic pleasure. We 
 are fascinated by the situation because it offers us the op- 
 portunity to put ourselves into the hero's place, and our 
 pleasure is thus derived from deep psychic sources. In 
 other words, the poet offers us an enticing premium or a 
 forepleasure, whereby we may release some of our own 
 mental and emotional tension. But the liar, like the child, 
 wants everything and obtains pleasure solely in reciting to 
 others his egotistic adventures. 
 
 I now propose to take up a class of dreams known as 
 typical dreams. We classify them under that heading because 
 Typical there is hardly a person who does not have them 
 Dreams a j- some time of his life. One of the most com- 
 mon of the typical dreams is the dream of being naked. As 
 Charles Dickens has so happily put it, it is a dream that 
 everybody has, "from Queen Elizabeth to her most humble 
 gaoler." He describes it quite characteristically : we find 
 ourselves naked in a crowd ; though no one seems to notice 
 us or pay us the slightest attention, we ourselves are greatly 
 embarrassed. The dream is sometimes also modified. In-
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 209 
 
 stead of being naked, the dreamer is not dressed as he should 
 be. With all the others in evening clothes at a ball, for in- 
 stance, he may find himself in every-day attire; or if he is 
 in the army, he may find himself dressed contrary to the 
 regulations. Such dreams go back to the earliest period of 
 childhood, when the child is naked and experiences no feeling 
 of shame. Prof. "Freud declares that this age of childhood 
 in which the sense of shame is not present seems to our later 
 recollections a paradise, and the idea of paradise itself is 
 nothing but a composite phantasy from the childhood of the 
 individual. It is for this reason that in paradise human 
 being are naked and are not at all ashamed. When the child 
 grows older, the sense of shame and fear is aroused; it is 
 then that sexual life and cultural development begin. The 
 problem of nakedness is not only found in the story of Adam 
 and Eve, but is quite a dominant theme in fairy tales. You 
 may all recall Andersen's fascinating story of the two rogues 
 who wove that wonderful cloak for the king that only those 
 could see who were truly fit for their positions. You re- 
 member that neither the king nor his court nor the populace 
 would admit that nothing was seen ; every one was afraid 
 to confess the truth lest he thus betray his unfitness for his 
 particular position, and admired the garment immensely. It 
 remained for a little child to disclose openly that the king 
 was really naked and thus put an end to the ruse. Observe 
 how the unconscious, with which we may identify the child, 
 always tells the truth. 
 
 What do these dreams of nakedness represent? Accord- 
 ing to Prof. Freud they are exhibition dreams. We must 
 bear in mind that despite the fact that we are perfectly 
 reconciled to our ethical criteria, we unconsciously live 
 through many of the infantile states. We still like to walk 
 about naked as we did when we were children. There is 
 no greater pleasure that you can give to children than to
 
 210 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 allow them to walk about naked; it is quite common for 
 travelers to see children in certain parts of Europe exhibit 
 themselves. Indeed, I have no doubt that Andersen's story 
 itself is a reminiscence of the author's own exhibitionism, of 
 his own unconscious craving to appear naked. We see this 
 reversion to infantile feelings even in the waking state. As 
 you may know, the whole art of dressmaking always aims 
 at one thing, — discovering some new way of displaying the 
 woman's body, of rendering prominent those parts of the 
 body which attract men. The decollete and the evening 
 dresses we see at the opera and at the dinner are markedly 
 exhibitionistic despite the fact that they are worn by highly 
 respectable ladies. It is also a matter of common observation 
 that the woman who is not very proud of her physical make- 
 up is by no means eager to display it. 
 
 The next typical dream is the dream of the death of rela- 
 tives. I feel that everybody has had dreams of this nature. 
 The dreamer is usually very much affected by the death and 
 reacts to it in the dream just as deeply as in the waking state. 
 Of course, in view of the fact that our dreams are wish 
 realizations a great many will be shocked and wonder why 
 you should wish your relatives to die. Such dreams usually 
 go back to very early childhood when the conception of 
 death held no terror to the child, when death merely involved 
 absence. A little child cannot conceive the real significance 
 of the fact ; all that he understands is that the father is just 
 away on his vacation perhaps, or on a trip. He does not have 
 the same reaction to death that we observe in the adult. The 
 child often welcomes this protracted absence, for he is thus 
 freed from the restraint that his father imposed upon him. 
 
 In the same way it may seem strange to dream of the 
 death of one's sister in view of our fundamental thesis that 
 the dream represents essentially a hidden wish. But we find 
 that if there are two sisters in the home the older child will
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 211 
 
 usually impose her will upon the younger one. The younger 
 child is helpless, but in the absence of her sister she is able 
 to enjoy a degree of freedom and independence that she 
 could not have before. In one particular case of two married 
 sisters, for instance, the younger one dreamed that her sister 
 was dead and experienced all the emotions that go with 
 mourning. Upon analysis it was found that her dream went 
 back to her childhood when she was dominated by her sister. 
 She did not wish so much in the dream that the sister were 
 dead in the real sense of the word, but that she were away. 
 This is the basic significance of all dreams of this type; we 
 are dealing here with a situation representing an infantile 
 wish. 
 
 There are a number of dreams, however, describing the 
 death of a relative in which we find no sadness, no grief, 
 no affective elements whatsoever. We have here an alto- 
 gether different situation. Such dreams do not denote death 
 at all. I reported, for example, the case of a man who 
 related to me how he dreamed that he saw his brother with 
 his head cut open and was by no means affected by the 
 terrible sight ; it seemed quite natural to him to see his 
 brother in that condition. It is noteworthy that he came 
 to me some time before the dream and asked me whether I 
 thought there was any substance in what he read in the 
 newspapers about trephining a defective boy's head to make 
 him well. I assured him that that was all nonsense and 
 impossible. His brother was quite a serious problem to him 
 and the dream, far from expressing the wish that his brother 
 were dead, expressed his ardent desire that he be cured. 
 
 I would have you note also a type of dream in which the 
 sister dreams of the death of her brother. The relations 
 between brother and sister are not at all as amicable and 
 harmonious as we generally suppose. Our ethical training 
 enjoins upon us to live harmoniously and we realize that
 
 2i2 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 we ought to be good and just to our sisters and brothers. 
 But frankly, I have never observed more bitter enmities 
 than between brothers and sisters. They know how to hate 
 because they know also how to love. I have analyzed many 
 a dream which, shocking though it was to the moral principle 
 of the dreamer, contained nevertheless the remnants of this 
 early hatred between brother and sister. Thus an intelligent 
 cultured woman dreamed that her brother was dead. The 
 situation was that her mother had left some money which 
 her brother was planning to appropriate despite the fact that 
 she needed it far more urgently than he. But I would have 
 you mark very carefully that in reality this woman would 
 rather do without the money than have her brother die. In 
 the unconscious, however, we are living through our child- 
 hood, we are primitive and absolutely egocentric, we are 
 concerned with problems solely as they affect us. In the 
 unconscious our wishes balk at nothing: we are ready to 
 dispatch through death or any other means any person who 
 stands in our way. 
 
 Very often, too, our secret desires may be unconsciously 
 realized even in the waking state. I have reported the case 
 of a noted physician in New York who was hurriedly called 
 away from his home to the bedside of his sick, old uncle. 
 When he came he did not take over the charge of the case, 
 because everything possible was done for the patient by his 
 own family physicians. All hope for the patient's recovery 
 was abandoned and his death was expected every day. But 
 despite the many complications, the patient held on to life 
 tenaciously and days passed without any marked apparent 
 change. His nephew became quite anxious to return to 
 New York as soon as possible, as there was a very busy 
 practice awaiting him, and what was more, there was illness 
 in his own family. One evening the uncle became very ill, 
 and as the attending physicians were away, he gave him a
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 213 
 
 hypodermic to stimulate his heart. Very shortly the old man 
 died. When he later looked at the vial from which he took 
 the drug, he found, to his great consternation, that instead 
 of giving him strychnin, he gave him hyoscine, a drug that 
 has exactly the opposite action of strychnin. In other 
 words, he actually killed the patient. Consciously, of course, 
 he did not wish to kill him, and in his terrible mortification, 
 he consoled himself in the thought that he would have died 
 soon anyway. The physician unconsciously hastened the 
 man's death in his great eagerness to return to his home. He 
 informed me of this, years after it happened : he assured me 
 that he revealed the fact to no one; he merely wished to 
 corroborate what I said in one of my psychoanalytic papers. 
 I learnt also, that when a boy, he had many dreams of the 
 death of this very uncle, and indeed very often actually 
 wished that the man were dead. The boy's father died when 
 the child was very young, and the uncle was unusually severe 
 with him. Though he became more and more attached to 
 him as he grew older, it would seem that the coup de grace 
 did not lack hostile motivation. 
 
 In the unconscious, then, our own immediate welfare takes 
 precedence over every other consideration : father, brother, 
 sister, and relative are only of minor importance. Thus an 
 important question to ask yourself in dream analysis is "cui 
 bono," to whose advantage is the underlying situation in the 
 dream? If it is to the advantage of the dreamer, or in other 
 words, if it falls in line with his secret inner demands and 
 strivings, then the dream has its significance only in terms of 
 that situation and no other, for the dream always deals with 
 problems of the most intimate personal character. The 
 dream is always egocentric. 
 
 There is another typical dream dealing with the death of 
 the father, that we find particularly among young sons. We 
 have to consider here the primitive state of the human being.
 
 214 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 There is always a rivalry between father and son for the 
 love of the mother, and this, despite the fact that the father 
 may love his boy very dearly. The son has learned that he 
 receives much more attention and love from his mother, and 
 is treated more leniently in the father's absence. In this type 
 of dream, therefore, we see the desire on the part of the 
 child to get rid of his father. It is really surprising to note 
 how many boys dream openly as well as disguisedly of the 
 death of their father. These dreams are even more common 
 than those dealing with the death of the teacher, for the 
 latter plays a smaller part in the child's psychic life than the 
 father. For one thing the teacher comes into his life at a 
 later period and as he is not surrounded with the halo of 
 parental sanctity, hostile feelings against the teacher are 
 generally quite conscious. 
 
 We call such dreams of the death of the father (Edipus 
 dreams, because, according to Prof. Freud, to whom we are 
 indebted for the name, they bring to light an essentially 
 human situation that has found most fitting expression in 
 Sophocles' noted tragedy of "CEdipus Rex." You remember 
 the story: 
 
 Laius, the King of Thebes, married Jocasta. After years 
 of childless marriage, Laius visited the Delphian Apollo and 
 prayed for a child. The answer of the god was as follows: 
 "Your prayer has been heard and a son will be given to you, 
 but you will die at his hand, for Zeus decided to fulfill the 
 curse of Polybos, whose son you have once kidnaped." In 
 spite of the warning the son was born, but remembering the 
 oracle, the child's feet were pierced and tied, and he was 
 delivered to a faithful servant to be exposed. The latter, 
 however, gave the child to a Corinthian shepherd who took 
 it to his master, the King of Corinth, who, being childless, 
 adopted it and called it CEdipus, meaning swollen feet. 
 When the boy grew up into manhood he became uncertain
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 215 
 
 of his own origin, and consulting the oracle, received the 
 following message : "Do not return home for thou art des- 
 tined to kill thy father and marry thy mother." In order 
 to avoid the fulfillment of this prophecy (Edipus at once 
 left Corinth and accidentally wandered toward Thebes. On 
 the way he met King Laius and in a sudden altercation with 
 him struck him dead. He then came to the gates of Thebes, 
 where he solved the riddle of the Sphinx who barred his 
 way. As a reward for ridding Thebes of this scourge he 
 was elected king and presented with the hand of the widowed 
 queen, Jocasta. He reigned in peace for many years and 
 begot two sons and two daughters with his unknown mother, 
 until a plague broke out which caused the Thebans to consult 
 the oracle. The messenger returned with the advice that the 
 plague would cease as soon as the murderer of King Laius 
 would be driven from the country. Sophocles then develops 
 the play in a psychoanalytic manner until the true relations 
 are discovered, namely, that CEdipus killed his own father 
 and married his own mother. The tragedy ends by CEdipus 
 blinding himself and wandering away into voluntary exile. 
 
 According to Prof. Freud this noted Greek tragedy depicts 
 a typical situation found in the psychic life of every indi- 
 vidual, that undoubtedly Sophocles wrote the play as a 
 reaction to his own feelings towards his father and his 
 attachment to his mother. Indeed, Freud has pointed out 
 that there are many passages in the play which very definitely 
 demonstrate that it was based upon dream material. We 
 find, for instance, that when CEdipus was so profoundly 
 mortified by the true facts of the tragedy, his mother Jocasta 
 consoles him in one passage thus : "Do not worry over this, 
 because many a man has found himself in his dreams the 
 partner of his mother's bed, but those go through life best 
 who take those things as trifles." It would seem then, that
 
 216 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the author had grasped the full psychological import of what 
 appears to be a universal situation. 
 
 (Edipus dreams or dreams involving sexual relations with 
 one's immediate family are very common. It is noteworthy 
 that when I first wrote a paper on the subject I had col- 
 lected probably only forty or fifty dreams of this type. But 
 upon its publication I began to receive numerous letters from 
 various people, all of whom had the same story to relate : 
 "I was so shocked by these dreams, — I thought I was the 
 only one to have them. But I am relieved to know that they 
 are quite common." That was the general tenor of the com- 
 munications. We may say, then, that it is everybody's fate, 
 as it were, to be a rival of his own father and have his first 
 love directed towards his own mother. Such a situation has 
 a profound influence upon the individual's whole life. We 
 shall meet it again when we discuss the subject of the only 
 child. It is absolutely necessary to understand it in order 
 to form the proper adjustment to life. 
 
 All such dreams are in the final analysis a reaction to the 
 tyrannical part played by the father in the household. The 
 tyranny of father over son is a subject which stands out 
 prominently in folklore and mythology; the struggle be- 
 tween the Greek gods is essentially a conflict between father 
 and son. It is also quite a common theme in literature. I 
 now recall, for instance, that in one year there were no less 
 than five plays running in New York which dealt with the 
 rivalry between father and son. In fact the (Edipus trend 
 is more common in literature than is generally supposed. I 
 have recently read an article by a well-known playreader in 
 New York in which the writer stated that he could not 
 understand why authors should deal so much with topics of 
 the (Edipus character. He went on to assert that many 
 excellent plays had to be rejected because the theme is too 
 delicate; the love between mother and son or sister and
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 217 
 
 brother is too grossly evident. You see the sister is usually 
 a substitute for the mother. 
 
 We shall learn later, that when the normal sexual develop- 
 ment is retarded through an over-indulgence in love for the 
 son on the part of the mother, a fixation on the mother may 
 result. When we say that the man is fixed on the mother or 
 the woman on the father, we do not mean the parents as they 
 look to-day but as they appeared when the children were 
 still infants. At that early age of the child's life the mother 
 and father looked different and also behaved differently. The 
 influence of such a fixation upon the parent is only too ap- 
 parent in the later selection of the adult. Given a number 
 of women to choose from, a man will invariably select the 
 woman that has been more or less selected for him in the 
 unconscious. That is to say, if everything is normal he will 
 be guided from the very outset by the image of his own 
 mother. If conditions are not normal, however, his selec- 
 tion will be controlled by the reaction formed against it. 
 
 Consider, for instance, the case of Mr. B., who informed 
 me that as far as he could remember he was always attracted 
 to women of the Grecian type, tall, well formed and well 
 developed. And though he married a woman of that type, he 
 could not understand why his grand passion was for a woman 
 of the opposite type, that is to say, more like the French or 
 the petite type. When we investigate his life we find that 
 his mother was of French descent, of the French type. The 
 question naturally suggests itself, why should he have been 
 drawn to women of the opposite type or, in other words, to 
 women so radically different from the mother image? Upon 
 first thought we might say that such a condition is only proof 
 of nature's far-sightedness in trying to preserve the proper 
 balance, for if like were to attract like we would have on 
 the one hand, one might say, a race of giants, and on the 
 other, a race of pigmies. But the explanation is not so
 
 218 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 simple. In speaking to Mr. B. about his mother, he recalled 
 that he never forgave his father for actually poking fun at 
 his mother on two different occasions because of her small 
 stature, and how deeply touched he felt at some of the dis- 
 paraging remarks directed at her on that very account by 
 various other people. It is not difficult to see what happened 
 here. Consciously Mr. B was always trying to tear himself 
 away from that particular short-coming of his mother by 
 seeking tall women. But in the unconscious he gravitated 
 toward the mother image, and accordingly experienced his 
 grand passion only when he met the type of woman that 
 approached most closely her type. As you see, then, we 
 are very often negatively influenced by these early attractions. 
 In normal cases the individual always gravitates toward the 
 parent image, and it is for this reason that husband and wife 
 resemble each other's parents. I have seen numerous cases 
 where the wife resembled the husband's mother or sister to 
 such an unusual degree that one could hardly tell the 
 difference between the two. Thus a New York boy upon the 
 death of his father left his home and went to California, 
 where he was brought up by an uncle. When he married 
 he came east with his wife on his honeymoon, and the mo- 
 ment his mother saw her she declared that the latter looked 
 just like his younger sister Jane. In fact, she insisted that 
 she saw the marked resemblance from the photograph her 
 son had sent her, but she was quite sure of it now. He 
 walked with his wife on the avenue one day and his sister's 
 classmate, who did not live in New York, ran up to her and 
 kissed her warmly, thinking that she was her friend Jane. 
 People mistook his wife for his sister so frequently that he 
 finally began to become aware of the resemblance himself. 
 I have five photographs, three of his wife and two of his 
 sister, pasted on a cardboard and I have shown them to 
 quite a number of people, some of whom are artists, and
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 219 
 
 there was only one man who conld tell the difference be- 
 tween the two women. This he did by resorting to such 
 devices as measuring the angle of the chin and so on. It 
 was absolutely impossible for the average observer to dis- 
 tinguish between the two women. The problem of resem- 
 blance has been noted by many students who were not at all 
 working psychologically in our sense. Pearson, an English- 
 man, for instance, has investigated this subject on a physical 
 basis, studying the color of the hair, stature, color of the 
 eyes, etc., and formulated the conclusion that judging from 
 physical resemblances married people look more like first 
 cousins than strangers. 
 
 It is because the artist also actually gravitates towards 
 some more or less definite image that we have the Madonna 
 cult. It is needless to say that the various studies of the 
 virgin Mary are all the products of artists who did not live 
 at the time of the Madonna. None of them really knew 
 how she actually looked, and indeed if she resembled any 
 type of woman at all, she must have resembled the Jewish 
 woman. It is noteworthy that a German artist has recently 
 actually painted a Madonna of the Jewish type. Careful 
 study shows that the Madonnas that we see everywhere are 
 really nothing but idealized images of the artist's own mother. 
 Thus Madonnas painted by Italian artists resemble the 
 Italian woman, those by Spaniards the Spanish woman, and 
 so on. Study for a moment Leonardo Da Vinci's St. Anna 
 and the Child and you will at once observe how much they 
 resemble his own Mona Lisa; they all seem to have that 
 peculiar Leonardesque quality, that enigmatic smile that we 
 hear so much about. In the same way also his John the 
 Baptist bears a marked resemblance to his Mona Lisa and 
 it is quite common to mistake him for a young woman. We 
 may say that in all these paintings the artist has unconsciously 
 reproduced the image of his own mother. They are all
 
 220 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 reproductions of the artist's ideal image of his mother. I 
 have ample corroboration of this in the artistic productions 
 of modern artists whose lives I know intimately, but unfor- 
 tunately material of this character cannot be divulged at 
 present.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 TYPES OF DREAMS (Continued) 
 
 As there has been considerable objection to dreams of the 
 death of parents, it may be wise to analyze with you a dream 
 of this type given to me by a patient. It will show you very 
 definitely how even later in life one dreams of the death of 
 parents, though, of course, by no means openly as in child- 
 hood, but in a hidden, veiled way. Mrs. B. dreamed that 
 tzvo old people, a man who seemed to be her father only 
 that he looked much older, and a woman who seemed to be 
 his wife and resembled her grandmother, or, more definitely, 
 her mother's mother, were starting for a walk. "I zvas ill, 
 at least in bed, so I told the people around me to follow them. 
 No one wanted to, so I got up and followed them. They 
 walked through the dining room, passed a pantry, and then 
 came to another pantry which was open. As the old woman 
 seemed unsteady on her feet, I called to the man to hold h-er 
 back; just then he opened the door and pushed her down 
 and she was killed, as he zvished. He turned his head, sazv 
 that I was there and realised that I noticed everything. I 
 wrote down the dream and went back to bed and dreamed the 
 same dream over again, only this time I stepped back so that 
 the old man did not see that I saw him commit the murder." 
 
 Mrs. B., a woman of thirty, suffered from a pro- 
 found psychoneurosis. Her father and mother had been 
 living apart for over twenty years and were total strangers 
 to each other, and this, despite the fact that they both lived 
 under the same roof. This was as well known to outsiders 
 
 221
 
 222 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 as to the children themselves, but somehow the parents did 
 not care to separate. What was more, the children knew 
 that the father had a mistress who was his former stenog- 
 rapher; their sympathies were entirely with him, for, from 
 their descriptions, the mother was apparently a paranoiac. 
 They considered her insane and felt that she made the 
 father's life miserable. Mrs. B. even claimed that she had 
 no objection to her father's amour with the stenographer. 
 She knew the young woman personally and held her in high 
 regard. But she always entertained a more or less deep- 
 seated dislike for her, for she realized that she was being 
 deprived by her of a good deal of the father' affection, she 
 saw in her a rival of his love. She experienced what we 
 designate in our work the ambivalent feeling, a feeling of 
 contrast: the individual loves and hates, as it were, at the 
 same time. Love and hate go hand in hand. When one 
 loves deeply the more or less disagreeable characteristics of 
 the person will be completely concealed under the love. A 
 man who is in love will see nothing of that which other 
 persons consider a marked blemish in his inamorata. This 
 ambivalency of feeling is a well-known mechanism and we 
 should try to understand it. In ordinary life, of course, we 
 can usually separate the two feelings : "He is a good teacher, 
 but he knows so little about life," you may say about your 
 teacher. "He is a very fine man, but lacks character as far 
 as business is concerned," you may think to yourself about 
 your employer. But when it concerns one whom we love 
 or are supposed to love, we have to hide the disagreeable 
 phase of his character. "He is a fine father, but a despic- 
 able man," one cannot say about his father. A mother would 
 never observe: "My daughter is very accomplished, but not 
 quite well behaved morally." We do not see the shortcom- 
 ings of those we love or are supposed to love. But uncon-
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 223 
 
 sciously we are well aware of them; though we hide them 
 they keep on growing luxuriously in the unconscious. 
 
 Mrs. B. was married to a man whom she did not wish 
 to marry originally. She had been engaged to him for a 
 number of years, but somehow it was one of those chronic 
 engagements. Like a chronic wound, — a chronic engage- 
 ment never works well. Usually the long-engaged fiancee 
 or her lover marries some one else suddenly, or if they do 
 marry eventually, they are never happy. It does not at all 
 bespeak happiness in matrimony when the fiancee confidently 
 declares: "I have known him ever so long." We must re- 
 member that the love impulse is normally acute and ve- 
 hement and sees things through at all costs. Anything 
 chronic, even in love, is not good. It is not surprising, then, 
 that when Mrs. B. finally did marry the man, she found she 
 could not get along with him. She would live with him for 
 a few months only to return to her parents again. In a way 
 she imitated the conditions that existed in her own home. 
 This is no accident. Adjustment always begins at home and 
 the individual always adjusts himself in proportion to the 
 degree of adjustment that existed in the home. Whenever 
 there is quarreling and friction in the family, the child either 
 develops a neurosis, or imitates the home condition later in 
 his life. I can cite numerous cases showing how marked 
 this imitation is. I have cases that go back to four genera- 
 tions where the same imitation prevailed, — unhappy married 
 life, separation, divorce. It is really an unconscious repro- 
 duction from one generation to another that is not at all 
 hereditary. Mrs. B. very definitely reproduced the situation 
 that she saw in her own home, except that she identified 
 herself with the father rather than with the mother. But 
 she could not continue this very long, presently she broke 
 down, she began to have hallucinations, some mild delusions 
 and various other symptoms.
 
 224 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 When I began to treat the patient, there at once came up 
 the problem of her husband. As I do not take any special 
 attitude in such matrimonial difficulties, I left her to decide 
 for herself. It was a difficult problem to solve: on the one 
 hand, she did not wish to stay with her husband, on the other 
 hand, it was hard for her to stay in her parents' home. Her 
 mother would often ask, "What would you do if I were to 
 die?" She was thus but indirectly referring to the fact that 
 if she were to die the father would at once marry the 
 stenographer, and the daughter would consequently have to 
 leave the house. There was considerable truth in this, and 
 the argument struck home, for Mrs. B. always wanted to 
 have the management of the house herself and she feared the 
 possibility of seeing it pass over entirely into the hands of 
 her father's mistress. 
 
 Analysis of the dream revealed that the man in the dream 
 represented her father; the woman appeared to be an old 
 lady, perhaps over a hundred years old, and resembling her 
 grandmother. She informed me that her mother resembled 
 her grandmother. Now the latter died at eighty-six and 
 had she lived until the day of the dream she would have been 
 one hundred and one. The slight difference between the 
 woman in the dream and the mother recalled to her the 
 features of the stenographer, her father's mistress. The 
 combined ages of the stenographer who was thirty-one and 
 the mother was exactly eighty-six years. In other words, 
 there was a condensation of the two persons, the grandmother 
 representing both the mother and the stenographer. 
 
 In the dream, as we see, the father kills them both, and 
 that is indeed the best solution for the patient. She does not 
 sympathize with her mother and would often complain, 
 "There is no use talking about her; she is crazy and does 
 not understand me." As for the stenographer, she liked her 
 and was grateful to her for what she did to help the father.
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 225 
 
 Her objections to her were simply due to a feeling of 
 jealousy. One of the reasons for the friction between her 
 and her husband was that he could not supply her with the 
 little luxuries that she was able to receive from her father at 
 home, whose favorite daughter she was. The only possible 
 solution that she could see was to leave her husband alto- 
 gether and stay at home. Her father offered to help her 
 husband but the husband would' not accept any aid, though 
 he was willing, however, to live at home with her and thus 
 save rent. But she protested that she married to get away 
 from her home, and that she did not see any use for her 
 husband if she were to remain at home. "Imagine," she 
 declared, "sitting at dinner with a mother and a father who 
 do not talk, the father thinking all the while of the mistress ; 
 and you sit there, too, with your husband whom you do not 
 like." On the other hand, the mother was always ready with 
 that powerful argument: "If I should die, you know what 
 would happen to you." We see then how convenient it was 
 for the father to kill both women: the patient would then 
 have the house for herself and her father and not be 
 hampered by a crazy mother and a rival mistress. She did 
 not, of course, formulate such a wish consciously, but you 
 see how well it fits in with the situation. It is remarkable 
 that there was this condensation, not only in appearance, but 
 also in age. The age of the old lady just equals the com- 
 bined ages of the two women. This may seem very peculiar 
 to you but it is a common occurrence in dreams. 
 
 It is interesting to note the other work of the psychic 
 censor * in her dreaming the dream over again. This time 
 
 lr rhe psychic censor, as the term is used in our work, is nothing 
 but the inhibitions imposed upon the individual by society, and once 
 established, operates all the time, whether we are awake or asleep. 
 As we have pointed out previously, between consciousness and the 
 unconscious there is a screen which we designate as the fore- 
 conscious. In the unconscious, the psychic material is in the pure 
 unalloyed form, infantile wishes arc there, primitive urges. But
 
 226 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 she did not wish her father to see that she observed him 
 murdering her mother. The day previous I explained to 
 her the wish as the dream-motive and the modified dream, 
 therefore, shows her agreement with what I told her, namely, 
 that every dream represents the fulfillment of a hidden wish. 
 For a dream repeating something heard shows that the 
 dreamer is in harmony with the thought or sentiment ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 A common typical dream is the so-called examination 
 dream. The dreamer usually seems to be taking an exami- 
 nation and has the same emotional reaction to it that we 
 observe in the waking state; he experiences the same sense 
 of uneasiness and uncertainty that accompany the actual 
 experience. The strange thing is that all during the dream 
 he protests against the idea of being subjected to an examina- 
 tion : "Why should I be examined in this subject," he seems 
 to be saying to himself. "Am I not already a doctor?" 
 But the examination nevertheless continues. Another inter- 
 esting thing to note is that one is examined not in a subject 
 in which one was poor or failed, as might be supposed, but 
 rather in a subject in which one was considerably proficient. 
 Analysis shows that these dreams are typical of individuals 
 who have received the usual academic education at schools 
 and colleges. Upon examining them you find that you have 
 them only at a time when you are about to embark upon 
 some new venture and you experience a feeling of uncer- 
 tainty and fear as to its outcome. You go to bed with that 
 same uneasy feeling that you had on the day before the 
 examination. "Yes," you may think to yourself, "I know 
 my subject but I may be asked something that I do not 
 
 before it can reach consciousness it has to pass through the fore- 
 conscious where it is censored. Upon reaching consciousness, it is 
 thus in a modified and distorted form. In the above dream the 
 distortion was inevitable : the dreamer could not openly kill the 
 mother, and so she concealed her under the composite person of 
 the grandmother and the stenographer.
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 227 
 
 know." And so when you retire with your mind uneasy 
 as to the outcome of your undertaking, by association you 
 recall that same emotional feeling- experienced in the past 
 on the similar occasion, and the result is an examination 
 dream in a subject which you have passed with honors, so 
 that you might be able to console yourself thus: "Now you 
 were afraid before your examination but you passed it 
 without difficulty: in the same way also you will pass this 
 examination. Do not worry, do not fear." We must re- 
 member that what is of fundamental consideration is the 
 emotional element in the dream. If there is any resem- 
 blance between the emotional element of to-day and any 
 emotional element of the past, the dream will conjure up 
 the past in all its vividness. In the particular case it is a 
 consolation dream: all uncertainty is to be removed: you 
 are to be consoled. But the psychic censor, which always 
 realizes that you are only dreaming, cannot possibly eliminate 
 the element of fear and uncertainty that you experienced on 
 the occasion of the actual examination. When the dreamer 
 awakens he feels greatly relieved that it was only a dream. 
 Some of you may recall in this connection the case of the 
 man who dreamed that he was swimming on a board in the 
 bay. We may say that this was a sort of examination 
 dream. In the dream, as you remember, a boyhood expe- 
 rience was revived; we may say that he again engaged in a 
 race, this time, however, not with his young playmates but 
 with a board of directors, and as in those boyhood matches 
 he finds himself again successful. 
 
 There is a class of dreams which continue to manifest 
 themselves for weeks and months until the wish they contain 
 is actually realized. They are what are commonly regarded 
 as "prophetic dreams." A chronic alcoholic showing delu- 
 sions of jealousy disliked a dog because his wife "was more 
 attached to the dog than to him." He continued to dream
 
 228 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 at different times that the dog was run over, taken away by 
 the dog catcher, etc., until one day during his wife's absence 
 he really disposed of it. Here the dream ostensibly treated 
 of the future, at least so the wife thought on her return 
 home. "Poor Fido," she exclaimed, "John (husband) 
 dreamed only last week that he was caught by the dog 
 catchers and now the dream has come true." This is what 
 is designated as the resolution dream. The person resolves, 
 perhaps unconsciously, to do a certain thing and the dream 
 continues to represent it as realized until it is actually ac- 
 complished. That is why dreams of this class are regarded 
 as prophetic dreams, "dreams that come true." I have 
 analyzed a number of them and all showed that the wish 
 always preceded the event in question. Thus one of my 
 patients dreamed that her brother who lived in another city 
 was dead, and after relating her dream to her husband re- 
 ceived word that her brother had really died. The analysis 
 showed that her brother suffered from chronic tuberculosis 
 which the doctors declared fatal months before. She was 
 fully aware of the gravity of his malady and often thought 
 he would be better off dead than alive. Her mother lived 
 with her, but owing to her brother's illness, she stayed with 
 him. She was nearing the end of a pregnancy and daily 
 hoped that her mother would return before her confinement. 
 This recalled similar experiences of childhood when her 
 mother often neglected her for the same brother because 
 he was very delicate and sickly. As a child she often wished 
 him dead, a thing quite common among children to whom 
 the idea of death means simply to be away. The conscious 
 wish "he would be better off dead than alive" became the 
 dream incitor because it succeeded in arousing a similar in- 
 fantile wish. 
 
 The realization of our waking dreams shows precisely the 
 same mechanisms. This can be observed not only in the
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 229 
 
 individual but in whole races. We all know that the 
 "Leitmotif" of orthodox Judaism is and always has been the 
 reestablishment of a Jewish nationality, the return to Jeru- 
 salem; and should Zionism ever succeed in obtaining Pales- 
 tine, the Biblical dreams, the prophecies, would be considered 
 as having "come true." 
 
 Another typical dream is that of missing trains. I would 
 not consider this a typical dream if it did not usually have 
 one very important and distinct connotation, despite its 
 many other meanings depending upon the individual case. 
 We observe in this dream a state of anxiety; the individual 
 experiences all the unpleasantness of packing hurriedly to 
 make the train, he meets with all sorts of difficulties and 
 hindrances on the way, and to cap the climax, he finally 
 misses the train. We have here again a consolation dream; 
 we are told, as it were, not to worry, as there will be no 
 departure. This type of dream is usually a reaction to the 
 fear of death, and recalls to the dreamer some scene in early 
 childhood when his parents were taken from him, sometimes 
 through actual death, sometimes for just some trip, leaving 
 him heartbroken and crying. 
 
 We must also not fail to note the important part the train 
 plays in the child's life. Typifying, as it does, motion to the 
 highest degree, the moving train has a powerful hold on his 
 imagination, exercising a fascination over him no less pro- 
 found than his first sense of awe and terror at the sight. 
 
 One of the most typical dreams is the flying dream. A 
 man related to me the following dream of this type : He was 
 walking, and all of a sudden he felt lighter and lighter and 
 suddenly he began to glide over the tops of houses and the 
 whole city was looking up to him as to an aeroplane. Such 
 dreams are usually found among people who have unbounded 
 ambitions, who wish to excel and stand high in the estimation 
 of the world. Very often it is found also among those who
 
 2 3 o PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 are not tall of stature, who by no means relish the idea of 
 having to look up to people when speaking to them. They 
 would rather look down upon others and the only way they 
 can realize such a wish is in soaring far above them or, in 
 other words, in flying. One man who came under my ob- 
 servation had this type of dream quite often; and it is note- 
 worthy that his most ardent wish was to be taller than he 
 was. He often resorted to mechanical appliances and similar 
 methods to pull his limbs. 
 
 It is hard to imagine what an important role in life the 
 wish to be taller plays. I have known a number of people 
 who informed me with all the emotion that usually goes with 
 the disclosure of some very intimate, personal secret, how 
 hard they always tried to be just a little taller. It is hard to 
 realize how much time, money and effort men and women 
 spend in their sanctum sanctorum, in the pursuit of divers 
 means and ways to become taller. 
 
 An unusually interesting typical dream is the falling 
 dream. It is significant to note that at certain times in life 
 one has more dreams of this type than at other times. 
 Various investigators in attempting to account for the dream 
 psychologically, have offered all kinds of far-fetched and 
 amusing explanations. One of the most common of these 
 is that, in accordance with the culture-epoch theory, the 
 dream goes back to prehistoric times, and in this particular 
 case, to the period when we were monkeys and lived on the 
 tops of trees. We are told that when the monkey fell down 
 peradventure from the tree at night, he was immediately 
 devoured by some vicious reptile, and that it is for that 
 reason that we never strike the ground in the dream. Such 
 a notion is difficult to conceive in the light of the most 
 modern investigations along these lines ; surely it is hard to 
 conceive of a monkey falling down from a tree and being 
 at once swallowed by some cowering reptile. Moreover, I
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 231 
 
 have known dreams where the dreamer falls and actually 
 strikes the ground. What the falling dream essentially de- 
 notes, however, is a repressed pleasure originating from 
 motion, which, as we know, is a fundamental pleasure prin- 
 ciple in life. Motion is a passive root of sex and as such has 
 a powerful appeal to young and old alike. Thus from time 
 out of date, among uncivilized and civilized peoples alike, 
 the way to pacify the child that was unsatisfied with nursing, 
 was to rock it. We know that as the child grows older it 
 likes to be taken up by an adult, thrown up in the air and 
 caught: it experiences a sense of exhilaration and pleasure 
 in the experience. Later on this early emotion repeats itself 
 in dreams, but then we now no longer conceive it in terms 
 of pleasure, but, rather in terms of pain. It is now a re- 
 pressed, a tabooed pleasure. That is why so many men and 
 women have these falling dreams as symbolic of moral 
 falling. I have on record many dreams of falling given to 
 me by women when they were struggling with the idea of 
 moral falling. I reported a dream of a woman who informed 
 me that she dreamed that she was climbing a staircase and 
 found it very difficult ; she was always afraid that she would 
 fall down. Right on top of the staircase there stood an old 
 classmate of hers of whom she knew nothing, not having 
 seen her since they left school ; she had heard, however, that 
 she was a most unscrupulous, immoral woman now. Thus 
 her dream was the result of her struggling with the repressed 
 thought ; she was trying to reach the station of her classmate. 
 The dream being of the anxiety type she woke up in a 
 marked state of fear. The moral here is very evident: "If 
 you are going to do what you are thinking of you will be 
 just like your classmate"; the classmate standing here as a 
 symbol for moral falling. 
 
 There are dreams which you might say are of a local 
 character. This is particularly observed when we examine
 
 232 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the dreams of southern gentlemen. The latter invariably 
 have sexual dreams referring to colored women. This would 
 seem strange in view of the degree of aloofness with which 
 the colored people in the South are treated by the white 
 population. But I have never known a southern gentleman 
 who did not at some time in life have erotic dreams about 
 colored women. The reason is quite apparent: all of these 
 men had negro mammies and it is to them that they owe 
 their first early impression of the mother. It is well known 
 that many southern ladies have practically nothing to do with 
 the care of their children, that it is left entirely to the 
 mammy. It is on that account that the mammy is so very 
 often highly esteemed and even considered as a member of 
 the family. But the fact is that she is colored and her im- 
 press on the child manifests itself consequently in his later 
 erotic dreams. Whereas, then, the southern gentleman will 
 not deign to be in the same car with a colored woman, he 
 has nevertheless shown no scruples in cohabiting with her in 
 his younger days. This is unheard of in any other place 
 outside of the South, and it may interest you to know that 
 in investigating the sexual life of probably a few thousand 
 people I have never found a white man with the exception 
 of the southern gentleman who by preference would have 
 sexual relations with a colored woman. But in the South 
 this is quite common even among the respectable men. Thus 
 one often learns that many so-called gentlemen maintained 
 colored mistresses and some of them even acknowledged their 
 mixed offsprings. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of typical dreams I wish to 
 touch briefly upon another class of dreams which we may 
 consider more or less typical, — in which the dreamer identi- 
 fies himself with some animal. The dreamer is here hidden 
 under the animal, strange as that may seem. To give you a 
 little more insight into the nature of this identification, I
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 233 
 
 wish to read to you first, the dream of a woman who identi- 
 fied herself with a dog, and secondly, a significant part of a 
 very long dream of a patient who identified herself with a 
 horse. The first dream runs as follows: 
 
 "Brownie is sick and we give him medicine or we think 
 he has lived long enough, so we give him poison. Then we 
 regret it and I ring up the veterinary. I wonder whether the 
 poison is fatal, and as I think about it I realize that it is. 
 'It is hemlock,' I say to myself, 'and that is what they gave 
 Socrates.' I am very much worried and I am relieved when 
 the veterinary arrives and prescribes an emetic of mustard 
 and hot water. My mother is there and she irritates me 
 because, instead of helping, she only wrings her hands and 
 
 cries." 
 
 The dreamer has had the dog for four years and is deeply 
 attached to him. She is always with him, and never leaves 
 him out of her sight. The dog is a quiet, sober animal and 
 I frequently used to remark to her that "Brownie" appears 
 very philosophical. Of late the patient continued to fear 
 that he might die, and this, despite the fact that she con- 
 sulted a veterinary who assured her that the dog had still 
 four or five more years to live. In the course of the analysis 
 the dreamer recalled a play in which a girl attempts suicide : 
 as soon as she has taken the poison she begins to cry for help, 
 some one appears on the scene and administers hot water 
 and mustard as an antidote. I would have you mark that 
 these are the very medications that the physician prescribed 
 for the dog. She also recalls that on the day previous to the 
 dream she asked a girl at the canteen for something to eat 
 and was told that she could only have a "dog with mustard." 
 The analysis also revealed that she had been very depressed 
 of late and had thought seriously of suicide. In time she 
 began to be concerned over the dog, perhaps he might die, 
 she thought, — she thus began to detach some of her own
 
 234 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 anxiety from her own person to the animal. But she is like 
 the woman in the play who took the poison and straightway 
 called for help: she really does not wish to die. There are 
 so many people who merely like to play with the idea of 
 suicide, because it offers them some form of emotional 
 outlet. In the dream the patient is relieved because the 
 veterinary gives the dog mustard and hot water, thus saving 
 his life. The dream thus realizes her wish to live. That 
 part of the dream which speaks about her being irritated by 
 her mother refers to the friction existing between the patient 
 and her mother. Whenever the mother annoyed her she 
 would play sick. The parent in her great excitement would 
 then send for the doctor who would prescribe bromide. In 
 the dream we see the patient picturing herself dead only to 
 revenge herself on her mother. And the interesting thing to 
 observe is that this is all accomplished in the dream indirectly 
 through the person of the dog Brownie. 1 
 
 This identification with animals is often real and profound, 
 as the analysis of the following dream very definitely shows. 
 The dreamer is a noted animal painter, a woman who has 
 always loved animals. One of her greatest pleasures in life 
 is to frolic about in her studio, walking on all fours in imi- 
 tation of a pony. Her dream runs as follows: 
 
 "/ am walking in a sort of side path from S. . . . Station 
 on my way home. My skirt is up and I pass a hard stool 
 like a horse. I look around and see a woman walking some 
 little distance behind, there is perhaps a strip of something 
 across her face, a veil covering one eye. I hope she doesn't 
 see me and ridicule me. Again I pass a hard stool and turn 
 around and hope the woman hasn't seen me. I am walking 
 with some one, probably my father. I get into the road to 
 drive a horse, possibly an ass. Mr. L. gives me the reins, 
 
 *Cf. dream about the two cats fighting, another example of 
 animal identification.
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 235 
 
 which are not at all reins, but a single strap attachment 
 •without bridle or a bit. I am driving: I seem to have 
 stopped in the road with the horse, and the cart turned the 
 other direction. I am adjusting the harness at the collar 
 or something; there is a loose, sorrel mare zvhich comes up; 
 she is very beautiful, with a delicate head and nose, and 
 slender limbs. She stands right up against my horse, cheek 
 to cheek, as though to make friends with him or me. I slap 
 her on the side of the nose but she insists upon standing 
 there. I slap her again, and as I put my hand up toward 
 her again she bites or attempts to bite. As I resist, I say, 
 'She bites/ She seems to have gone down under a bridge 
 or subway. I want Mr. L. to keep her there while I get 
 away with my horse over the bridge. There seems to be 
 some difficulty. At last I go down to see how he is manag- 
 ing her, or to assist. She is now a young woman, pale and 
 thin, and not in her right mind. Mr. L. is holding her by 
 a string in her nose: — a piece of wire. I am afraid it will 
 tear and I say so. She comes toward me with her face 
 near mine and I am greatly frightened; she has a hairy lip 
 and is much older. I awake in fright." 
 
 Mrs. K., the dreamer, is a married woman of twenty-six, 
 who consulted me originally because she was nervous. As 
 far as the outer world was concerned she seemed perfectly 
 normal, her intimate friends never knew that there was 
 anything troubling her. The outstanding factor in her 
 psychic life is a condition that she had revealed to no one, — 
 the fact that she hated to be a woman and always desired to 
 be a man. This "masculine protest" as the feeling is desig- 
 nated is not as uncommon a mechanism as it may seem. 
 The dream is most significant, for it actually reveals the very 
 mainsprings of her whole psychic development and thus 
 offers a remarkable analysis of her whole neurosis. 
 
 "Going from S. . . . Station" refers to the place where
 
 236 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 she used to live when a little girl. "Walking with her skirt 
 up," — to this it was most difficult for her to associate, because 
 she is a very clean-minded woman. But it goes back to her 
 unusual attachment to horses. At a very early age she 
 evinced a tremendous interest in them, at the age of four or 
 five years she always craved to be a horse, and identified first, 
 her father and then herself with the horse. We can now 
 begin to see the reason for the strange situation, — "My skirt 
 is up and I pass a hard stool like a horse," — it is plainly the 
 result of her identification with a horse, it is an expression of 
 her wish to be a horse. We may already see how profound 
 and deep rooted is her identification. It is highly significant 
 also that one of her symptoms is marked constipation from 
 which she suffered for years. I am glad to say that since 
 the analysis of this dream, the symptom has entirely disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The woman "walking some little distance behind" is her 
 stepmother whom she describes as having been just, though 
 critical toward her. In the dream the patient sees a "strip 
 across her face, a veil covering one eye." This is a picture 
 of Justice and she recalls a cartoon of Justice that she saw in 
 one of the local newspapers. The woman became her step- 
 mother when Mrs. K. was five years old and though she 
 really treated her as a daughter, she has always remained the 
 one person of whom the patient was extremely jealous : Mrs. 
 K. could never forgive her father for marrying her. 
 
 Mr. L. is her brother who represents her ideal type of 
 man, the type of man whom she would have liked to marry. 
 The horse is really herself. "And possibly an ass," — to this 
 she associated her stepmother, thus identifying herself with 
 the stepmother in order to be with her father. We see that 
 she is desirous of taking the stepmother's place. 
 
 The analysis revealed also that every time the patient meets 
 a man she experiences a morbid dread that he might "bridle
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 237 
 
 her and put a bit in her mouth ;" it is for that reason that 
 she craves to be a man, and protests against being a woman. 
 This is the crux of her emotional difficulties. We know that 
 at a certain period of her development almost every girl 
 would like to be a boy. But when the girl reaches a certain 
 age she begins to realize that she cannot do the things that 
 boys do, she gradually adjusts herself to a girl's normal in- 
 terests and occupations. This is as it should be. As women 
 are biologically different from men, they must be brought 
 up as women, and not as men ; we should give them an edu- 
 cation that fits them for womanhood. That is why it is so 
 absolutely necessary to guard most carefully against bringing 
 up a girl to be a tomboy. We must remember also to begin 
 training the child to react normally very early, for it will be 
 most difficult for him to give up an abnormal mode of re- 
 action later in life, after it has become a second habit, so to 
 speak. 
 
 The dreamer, then, always craved to be a man, though she 
 was not at all homosexual ; her cravings were perfectly 
 normal. She married a man who loved her deeply, out of 
 sheer pity for him, as she maintains. She does not treat 
 him at all as a husband, for it is she herself that desires to be 
 the man ; she would be extremely jealous, for example, if he 
 could shoot better than she. Out in the country she once 
 observed him to do a high jump and when she found that 
 she could not do it, she actually practised for days, until she 
 learned it. 
 
 From very early childhood, the dreamer always identified 
 herself with her father. She still imitates him practically in 
 everything. The man was exceedingly fond of horses, and 
 her own love of horses goes back to this source. When she 
 was a little girl he always played horse with her, the practise 
 continuing to as late as nine and ten. It was the little girl's 
 greatest delight. She learned to neigh and romp like a horse.
 
 238 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 The father, needless to say, fell right in the spirit of the 
 game, encouraging the little girl, and offering her, as he 
 thought, a source of great pleasure. 
 
 The mare coming up to her, "with a delicate head and nose 
 and slender limbs," represents her ideal horse. The dreamer 
 has studied and painted horses for years and knows con- 
 siderably about them, she may be justly considered a second 
 Rosa Bonheur. "She stands right up against my horse, 
 cheek to cheek, etc.— I slap her on the side of the nose. . . .": 
 this refers to a woman who is involved in an affair with a 
 man whom she loves. And as we read on, we find that the 
 mare actually turns out to be a woman. 
 
 From the above brief analysis we may readily see that the 
 dreamer retained what we may call her whole infantile 
 sexuality. Her father was to no small degree responsible for 
 this. As nice as it may be to play horse with one's child, 
 it is not quite the thing to do at the age of nine, ten or 
 eleven, at this time it is altogether too infantile a pastime for 
 father and child to engage in. How much better it would 
 have been had he taken her out for a walk and indulged in 
 some pleasure appropriate for a child of that age. 
 
 This identification with animals is not at all unusual. We 
 have seen a notable example of it in the case of the young 
 woman who accused herself of having drowned those pups. 
 We saw how real and profound was the identification and the 
 surprising extent to which it affected the young woman 
 physically. We find this mechanism in a more glaring form 
 among the insane. Long before I was a medical student, I 
 remember observing at Blackwell's Island a patient who was 
 known as "Johnny the Horse." He imagined that he was a 
 horse, he always pulled a little cart after him, ran, galloped 
 and behaved in every respect like a horse. I have heard that 
 he continued in this condition until his death. Apropos of 
 this you may recall the biblical story of Nebuchadnezzar, who
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 239 
 
 considered himself an animal when he became insane. Such 
 cases are known to psychiatrists as lycanthropia or delusions 
 of transformation. Such patients very often imagine them- 
 selves to be animals and imitate them in every possible way. 
 
 We observe a similar condition also in normal life. A 
 great many people show a marked attachment to animals, and 
 sometimes even take them as substitutes for children, when 
 the latter are denied them. There is no objection to animals 
 as pets provided the environment is suitable and the animals 
 are well cared for. They offer a good outlet to grown ups 
 and children. I recommend pets especially in the case of 
 only children. I prefer dogs and birds, animals that can 
 enter into rapport with the human being. I am against such 
 pets as white rats or snakes, because instead of helping the 
 individual to learn to give and take emotions more freely, 
 they actually tend to isolate him ; people as a rule either avoid 
 a person who keeps such animals, or else regard him as a 
 freak. 
 
 Pets have their purpose as an emotional outlet, and as such 
 fall into the same category with collections ; both offer modes 
 of emotional expression. They are valuable, particularly in 
 the case of an individual who lacks the opportunity to direct 
 his affection normally toward children, family or friend. 
 
 It is a fundamental truth that the human being must have 
 somebody, or something to love all the time: if he cannot 
 direct his libido toward some human being, he directs it 
 toward some animal or inanimate object, or sublimates it in 
 some activity. It is well known that we become attached not 
 only to a certain locality but to a certain home, a certain 
 room, a certain bed, etc. I have actually had to treat a man 
 because his chair in which he sat for thirty years was de- 
 stroyed. The history of suicides shows very definitely that 
 the individual was led to self-destruction because he had 
 nobody and nothing to love. While there is love, there is
 
 2 4 o PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 life, to paraphrase an old hackneyed saying. I know that 
 some people will never commit suicide no matter in what 
 distressing and harrowing circumstances they may find them- 
 selves, for an intimate study of their lives shows that they 
 have some person or object to whom they are deeply attached. 
 That is why we so often hear the well-known formula: 
 "If not for my children,— if not for my love of art, — etc., 
 etc., I would have been dead long ago." I have known a man 
 who informed me that the only thing that keeps him from 
 taking his life is his love for his pigeons. I am convinced 
 that were it not for that, he would commit suicide. That is 
 why abnormally attached lovers sometimes commit suicide 
 when they are torn away from each other. When they are 
 deprived of the love object they experience a terrible feeling 
 of voidness, they feel that there is nothing left for them in the 
 world, for the moment they cannot take their detached libido 
 and fix it upon some other object, and they commit suicide. 
 When I was abroad in 1905, I read about a couple in Paris 
 who committed suicide because their cat was killed. While 
 they were out driving, the animal jumped off the carriage and 
 was killed. There is no doubt that they identified the cat 
 with a child, and now that it was gone out of their life they 
 felt that they had nothing more to live for. 
 
 It is such intimate relationships formed in early childhood 
 between human beings and animals that make for this identi- 
 fication in both normal and abnormal mental life and lay the 
 basis for the appearance of animals in dreams. 
 
 We have noted thus far some of the general principles of 
 dream analysis and now I propose to be more concrete and 
 give you some conception of the dream as it appears in its 
 manifold associations and details. I hope to show you in 
 this way how every detail in the dream is manifoldly deter- 
 mined, or overdetermined. I have chosen two dreams for
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 241 
 
 that purpose. The first of these reads as follows: "It was 
 Easter Sunday and I had been commissioned to bring some 
 buns to my aunts. On my way to their home I 
 saw my uncle on the other side of the street; he Manifoldly 
 
 ,7 . . •• j- .• r Determined 
 
 was going m the opposite direction and car- 
 ried under his arm a dog which I recognised as belong- 
 ing to my aunts. A little further on I met Miss G., 
 a social worker; she referred to Mr. X., to the effect that he 
 was worth his weight in gold or some baser metal. When I 
 reached the house of my aunts I found the dog there; ap- 
 parently he had come back. My aunt complained that since 
 uncle was so fond of the dog, she had consented to his taking 
 him along, knozuing that the animal would find his way back. 
 The dog began to play with me. I put my hand in his mouth 
 and said, 'Rover, don't hurt me!' My brother George was 
 there and as he watched me playing with the dog, remarked: 
 'Make believe my little fellow wouldn't like a dog like that 
 to play with.' At that, some one, I think it was the dog him- 
 self, spoke: 'Why there is a puppy here, Rover's puppy; 
 Rover hasn't enough milk for it. The poor little thing needs 
 human milk!' I wondered how Rover came to have a puppy, 
 and my aunts explained that Rover had met another dog 
 Coucho in the woods." 
 
 When the person is asked what caused him to have such a 
 dream, he usually betrays utter ignorance at first, but upon a 
 little reflection, soon recalls some incident of the day previous 
 to the dream. Very often he may even reproduce some 
 situation that happened long before the dream, but it was 
 invariably something of the day before the dream that starts 
 the trend of the associations. Accordingly the particular 
 dreamer in question recalled that she had read on the 
 previous day some notice about a preacher who was going to 
 speak at a certain church that she usually attends on Easter 
 day. That very day she also thought of her mother's family ;
 
 242 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 on Easter day she usually visits her aunts, and that is why 
 it happened to be Easter day in the dream, though in reality 
 it was by no means near the spring holiday. When she 
 visits her aunts, she usually takes along buns; it is a sort 
 of family custom. The uncle is the man who died a few 
 years ago and whom she often used to meet in her aunts' 
 home. He was very fond of the aunts, of whom, by the 
 way, there were three, and also of their dog. The man was 
 considered a capitalist and the dreamer states that he was 
 quite wealthy when he died. As far back as the dreamer 
 could remember, the aunts always had black dogs. 
 
 Miss G., the social worker whom she met, brought these 
 associations : Yesterday the dreamer called on Mrs. B., the 
 mother of her dead friend ; the latter wanted her to call with 
 her on Mr. X. mentioned in the dream, but the dreamer re- 
 fused to do so. Mr. X. once had a love affair with the 
 dreamer and she hoped he would marry her ; but he married 
 another woman, primarily for the latter's money. Very few 
 people know about this old love affair and that is why she 
 would not call on him with Mrs. B. 
 
 Miss G. spoke about Mr. X. in the dream and declared that 
 he was worth his weight in gold or some baser metal. This 
 brought forth the following story: The dreamer read a 
 story in the evening newspaper the night before the dream 
 about a negro, Cato Alexander by name, who died in New 
 York in 1832. The account stated that this negro was 
 originally a slave who had somehow bought his freedom and 
 came to New York where he opened a tavern. Being an ex- 
 cellent cook, he became in time immensely rich. He had a 
 daughter and to any white man who would marry her, he 
 offered her weight in gold. According to the newspaper, 
 his wish was never realized. Mr. X. has been very pros- 
 perous since he married, and is now "immensely rich." You 
 see in the dream she speaks about his "worth" in terms of
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 243 
 
 "gold" or some "baser" metal, the adjective "baser" having 
 in this connection a distinct and peculiar significance, be- 
 cause she hates him and always thinks of him as "that dog." 
 
 As for the dogs, she remembers that in walking to the 
 subway station from her home, she saw a lady exercising 
 three dogs. That reminds her of her aunts who also had 
 three dogs. This recalled a letter that she read in the New 
 York Times in which the writer discussed the question 
 whether animals are guided by reason or instinct and con- 
 cluded that dogs show considerable reasoning power ; he 
 cited the example of a dog who though taken a long distance 
 away from his home, nevertheless found his way back, the 
 case thus demonstrating a very complex form of reasoning 
 on the part of the animal. 
 
 We have here already a great many associations which 
 throw considerable light on the dream. In the first place, 
 it is evident that Mr. X. is identified with the dog. The 
 association about the negro who desired a white man to 
 marry his daughter for her weight in gold is a bit of analogy 
 to Mr. X. who married a woman for her money and whose 
 whole aim in life was the acquisition of money. That is why 
 he was referred to as being worth his weight in gold or some 
 baser metal, and compared to a white man who would 
 marry a negress for money. 
 
 Her brother, George, in the dream, she saw in church last 
 on Easter Sunday, and she had occasion to think deeply 
 about him on the day before the dream. The last time she 
 met him, he spoke about Mr. X. and made some unkind, 
 caustic remark about him ; but she could only recall his saying 
 that Mr. X. was "a sucker and a dog." Indeed, that was 
 what the whole family thought of him. 
 
 As for having the dog talk, — that is not at all impossible 
 in the dream. You may recall, I am sure, the acrimonious 
 buffet of words between the two cats, to which I drew your
 
 244 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 attention in another connection. In dreams, as in fables and 
 mythology, inanimate and animate things know none of those 
 limitations that they may possess in reality; note, for in- 
 stance, that we have talking trees in Greek mythology. 
 
 To the dog's saying, "the poor little thing needs human 
 milk, etc." she gave the following association: She holds a 
 position of considerable importance, and was recently pre- 
 sented with a few liberty bonds for a charitable purpose by 
 the manager ; they were given to her with some ceremonial 
 and in his speech he referred to the dreamer as being "full 
 of the milk of human kindness." And that is exactly what 
 Mr. X. needs; he is devoid of all these fine qualities, he is 
 hard and mercenary, he needs a little of "the milk of human 
 kindness." 
 
 Please note that the words spoken by the dog were almost 
 an exact reproduction of the words heard before the dream. 
 A quotation in the dream is always based on something 
 heard or read but it is usually modified by the dream to fit 
 the situation in the dream. 
 
 The dreamer now returns to her aunts who were four in 
 number, three of whom are living. Their present dog is a 
 male puppy and it is the third that they have owned. The 
 former one, called Nellie, died of old age, and it was jocu- 
 larly remarked in the family, that just like her mistress, she 
 died a virgin; she was never allowed out of the house. 
 Rover meeting Coucho in the woods recalled to her a story 
 by John Burroughs that she had read in the newspaper; it 
 dealt with the mating habits of bucks, how they try to get 
 as many does as they possibly can, that they have a regular 
 "harem." Now according to the dream the dog met in the 
 woods another dog called Coucho; she knew of no such 
 name, but she soon resolved it into couch and the French 
 "coucher," to lie. 
 
 The dream represents the fulfillment of a wish. Despite
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 245 
 
 the fact that at present the dreamer consciously has absolutely 
 no regard for Mr. X. and would have nothing to do with him, 
 she nevertheless was in love with him in the past and would 
 have married him, had he so desired ; consciously, she enter- 
 tains no such hope now, but we still see traces of this old 
 attachment in the unconscious. He comes back, as we see in 
 the dream, though he is treated rather roughly and unspar- 
 ingly ; he lacks all the finer qualities ; he is base and despic- 
 able, — a very dog, — a man who would marry even a negress 
 for money. He is carried by the uncle, because the latter 
 put him on his feet financially and helped him in every way 
 to become successful ; he is carried in the opposite direction, 
 or in other words, to her home. For indeed, the uncle hoped 
 that by helping him, Mr. X. would marry his niece; he as- 
 sisted him because he thought that Mr. X.'s reluctance to 
 marry her was largely, if not entirely, due to economic and 
 financial drawbacks. 
 
 How did this dream come about? Its main determinant 
 was the visit the day before to Mrs. B. who, not knowing 
 what had passed between Mr. X. and the dreamer, sug- 
 gested innocently that they call on him and his wife. Mrs. 
 B. even remarked, "It's too bad you didn't care to marry 
 him." The dreamer said nothing in reply, but this un- 
 doubtedly stimulated many emotionally accentuated ideas. 
 We have this visit, then, which consciously was just a dis- 
 agreeable episode ; unconsciously, in the dream, it revived the 
 whole past by taking all the associations that were fresh in 
 her mind, particularly the story about the negro and his 
 daughter whose dowry was to be her weight in gold. "Mr. 
 X. is worth his weight in gold, or some baser metal," we 
 learn in the dream, an indirect comparison, of course, be- 
 tween him and the man who was to marry the negro woman. 
 The unconscious repressed wish still lingers there, and the 
 uncle, who is now dead, and who in the past tried to have
 
 246 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 Mr. X. marry his niece by aiding him financially, is carrying 
 him back to her home. Reading also on the same day about 
 the mating instincts of bucks, she unconsciously thought of 
 what Mr. X. had insinuated, when he broke to her the news 
 of his engagement, namely, that that ought not make any 
 difference in their relationships. You see here the indirect 
 analogy to the idea of the "harem." Thus, then, quite un- 
 consciously, because of these episodes that touched certain 
 analogous situations which in reality were very imperfect 
 comparisons, the dream was formed. We may readily see 
 that when she went to sleep, she thought again of her con- 
 versation with Mrs. B. and about the significant remarks that 
 the latter had made. But she could not consciously dwell on 
 the situation and pushed it out of consciousness. If she had 
 allowed herself to think of it, and all the reminiscences of 
 her sad experiences with Mr. X. she would not have fallen 
 asleep; so she crowded out, as it were, all thought of him 
 from her mind and all those episodes of the day, particu- 
 larly those which showed an erotic accent, were immediately 
 taken up and woven into the dream, for they fitted in with 
 the present situation and could thus realize the wish. 
 
 You can now the more readily see what we mean when we 
 say that there are two streams to every dream. The first one 
 is always in conflict with the second ; an individual may desire 
 something, but as it is impossible to realize, either because 
 it is not permitted or because it is unattainable, there imme- 
 diately ensues a sort of conflict in which the mind takes it up 
 and with a few modifications finally realizes it. The modi- 
 fications are entirely determined by what we call the psychic 
 censor which always stands between these two streams. In- 
 stead of allowing the original wish to be realized in its pure 
 form, the psychic censor modifies it so that you can realize 
 it even in the unconscious without shocking your other self. 
 You remember the dream about Venus and Apollo ; it would
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 247 
 
 have been impossible with the dreamer's psychic make-up; 
 so that both characters had to be invested, as it were, with all 
 sorts of disguises. Here, instead of consciously thinking 
 of the mating instincts of bucks, and dwelling openly on the 
 sex question and everything appertaining to it, there was a 
 marked repression and you have only a mere allusion to the 
 situation. We learn merely that the dog, Rover, went into 
 the woods, where he met another dog by the peculiar name 
 of "Coucho ;" we thus see in what an ingenious way the es- 
 sential idea is concealed. 
 
 We must bear in mind that in analyzing the dream it is 
 necessary to ask the dreamer : "What do the elements in the 
 dream recall? What associations do they arouse in your 
 mind?" If the element is an apple, for instance, and the 
 person in question draws it in the shape of a heart, and gives 
 you half a dozen associations that very definitely refer to 
 affairs of the heart and temptation, then the apple can stand 
 for that group of ideas and that only; it can represent no 
 other, for it arouses in the mind only those associations that 
 refer to love and temptation. In each person^ of course, 
 certain elements recall certain associations and depending 
 upon the nature of the individual's psychic life, you have 
 this or that meaning. But when the associations continually 
 revolve about an element in a certain definite way, then it 
 can denote one thing and one thing only, it only points to 
 some one definite and special fact. On the other hand, if the 
 element apple .should call forth in the same person's mind, 
 associations referring not to love but to taste, such as "sour" 
 and the like, then it would undoubtedly have an altogether 
 different significance. In other words, we cannot categori- 
 cally declare that an element denotes just one thing and no 
 other; its significance is to be determined only in the light 
 of the situation in which it is found, that is, it must be in- 
 terpreted through its latent content.
 
 248 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 The second dream that I have chosen for our more or 
 less detailed consideration, I analyzed with one of my pa- 
 tients, a married woman, who, upon my request, has written 
 it out with fine accuracy. It runs as follows: "A small 
 tower or room at the comer of a house or barn in the 
 country. A young woman, rather tall and slim, has been 
 shut up in it. I am greatly distressed and immediately I 
 (or my young woman companion or both) determine to. 
 break in and save her. We do so out of a sense of profound 
 sympathy for the suffering (asphyxiation and smothering) 
 that she is probably undergoing and with a feeling of deadly 
 shrinking and repulsion from the horror of the sight. I 
 say, to comfort and give us confidence: 'She is dead, she 
 took poison.' We found indeed that she is dead, most parts 
 of the body being dried and brittle like a mummy, — the head 
 and the mouth, — the latter shaped a little like a turtle, a little 
 like a mitre, — the mouth through which she breathed her 
 last agony and drank the poison. The hands are broken off 
 at the wrist and hang down from the square stone post 
 or elevated portion in the small room. They are still soft, 
 the flesh on them white as of a fresh corpse. The rest of 
 the body is dismembered and thrown over this raised portion 
 of the room." 
 
 The following are the associations that she gave me when 
 she came to see me : "I awoke lying on my back with an un- 
 comfortable feeling in my stomach, perhaps due to the very 
 sandy soft clams I had eaten for supper. I had taken the 
 day before a dose of cascara to get rid of a cold and catarrhal 
 condition that was considerably aggravated by my trip to my 
 brother in Chicago. I associate this with the poisoning in the 
 dream. The asphyxiation may have been suggested by my 
 being too warmly and heavily covered in bed or by my 
 breathing somewhat under the bed clothes. (We thus see 
 the determinant of the feeling of asphyxiation and smother-
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 249 
 
 ing). Then I heard Tommy (Joseph's young cat) mewing 
 somewhere outside, as if in great distress. His mother who 
 was sleeping on my bed ran out with her ears pricked to 
 find out what was the matter. I slid into my overcoat and 
 rubber boots, for it was raining heavily and went outside 
 with the lantern. It was 3.30 a. m. Now the mother cat 
 is wont to Jump over between two piazza roofs every night 
 to come in through the upper windows, but Tommy, though 
 he can climb the wisteria, has not ventured this jump as yet. 
 So it occurred to me that he might have tried it and failed 
 and that I should find him hanging by one claw, perhaps 
 afraid to drop. But this was not the case. I located him 
 presently on the garret roof and got him down with the step 
 ladder. 
 
 "This episode might have occasioned the dream; Tommy 
 might have mewed and then stopped for a while before I 
 awakened. The thought of going out to rescue a cat in 
 distress that perhaps was entangled in wire, or perhaps was 
 mad, was distinctly disagreeable." Here again as in the 
 dream caused by the alarm clock to which I drew attention 
 previously, we see that a stimulus, probably of very short 
 duration, produced the whole dream. Added to this, there 
 were the other significant factors : she was warmly covered 
 and the room was stuffy; she is also suffering from some 
 form of poisoning. The mewing of the cat, then, which 
 undoubtedly brought up in the unconscious all the possi- 
 bilities that might have really occurred, produced the dream 
 of a mangled woman, smothered and poisoned. In accord- 
 ance with our well known principle of dream analysis, she 
 herself was the woman experiencing the terrible death. 
 For no matter what the stimuli are, the dream is always ego- 
 centric; the individual himself is always taken as the psychic 
 node in terms of which all the stimuli are elaborated. 
 
 She continued her associations thus : "I am reminded of
 
 250 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 an incident a week or more ago when our neighbor who does 
 chores for my aunt killed a large Rhode Island red cock 
 for our Sunday dinner. It was left in the kitchen in a pail. 
 I soon heard the colored girl calling my aunt, 'Miss Fanny, 
 that rooster ain't dead!' My aunt who found the bird 
 standing up and out of the pail went upstairs. I ran down- 
 stairs, trembling, and wrathy at her for leaving it in that con- 
 dition, got my hatchet and finished the job. The cock's 
 head had been horribly mangled but he was far from dead." 
 Here strictly were all the elements of the scene she saw in 
 the dream. I am sure you must see by this time how in- 
 significant the manifest content of the dream is in com- 
 parison with the vast network of past associations, feelings 
 and emotions that enter into the latent content. You may 
 compare the manifest dream to a sunken steamer, you see 
 only the very top of the mast, the great bulk of the vessel 
 is submerged and it is only when you begin to pull at it that 
 you find the whole mast. 
 
 "The Italian boy, John, appeared at the moment when I 
 severed the cock's head and observed: 'Miss Fannie, he's 
 sufferin'.' I told him we had a saying, 'To jump around like 
 a hen with her head off !' But he maintained that when his 
 father killed chickens, they were stark and did not move. 
 
 "This reminded me of my drowning the young cats in 
 Edgewater, just before I left there." I would like you to 
 note the many intimate details that the average person would 
 deem too trifling to relate. And what an unheroic figure 
 the person often presents! There is something ludicrous 
 about the whole situation : here is this young woman taking 
 cascara to purge her stomach, chopping off a rooster's head 
 and drowning kittens. What mighty deeds ! we smile to our- 
 selves. 
 
 To return to the associations. "These incidents always 
 made me think of the war and how out of proportion one's
 
 TYPES OF DREAMS 251 
 
 distress at pain seems to be when it is visible and when one 
 is responsible for its relief. . . . Now I think of the de- 
 scriptions of mangled soldiers in 'Under Fire/ of the wild 
 girl of the trenches that was lost and accidentally found, 
 — a putrid corpse ; now of Constance Beverly in Marmion — 
 hence the mitre, because she was executed by the priests. 
 The turtle mouth : because my father had a turtle for me in 
 a wire cage in the brook when I was a child. During a 
 freshet it became caught in the wire and was held there high 
 and dry after the water went down. We did not visit it for 
 a number of days and then my father released it." It is in- 
 teresting to note the many and different elements that go to 
 make up the picture of that woman in the dream. We say 
 that each element is overdetermincd, or manifoldly de- 
 termined; there is no idea that is not determined by more 
 than one association. 
 
 But to continue: "I felt my father's pity for the poor 
 animal and was depressed myself. . . . This makes me 
 think how it occurred to me last night that my husband 
 would not have wakened or taken trouble for the kitten, — 
 in nine cases out of ten, — yet I remembered that in the tenth 
 case he would have been a fine hand at rescue work. . . . 
 
 "The girl is shut up as I felt my father confined me, — 
 particularly mentally. . . . My female companion is my 
 other self or the female in me, the compassionate, maternal 
 part of me; there is also the ideal part of me that accom- 
 plishes the heroic and overcomes horror and fear, the mascu- 
 line in me that is victorious in the dream. My only comfort 
 is that the girl is dead, and suffering and distress over. . . . 
 
 "I am now thinking of the conversation I had with my 
 brother's wife who recently went with him to the south. I 
 asked her if our family there seemed to be expecting to go on 
 'peopling the woods of Tennessee.' (I have had three 
 nephews born within the last two or three years). She
 
 252 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 spoke as though my sister and sister-in-law were worrying 
 because they feared their children were coming too close to- 
 gether. I observed : 'Then they are following my step- 
 mother in taking them as an unavoidable dispensation of 
 providence. Such an attitude is indeed beyond my compre- 
 hension.' " s 
 
 There now followed a discussion of birth control. . . . 
 The dreamer spoke of the difficulties experienced by Mr. A., 
 her married stepbrother, despite all the precautions that he 
 had taken. . . . "I recall his wife's labor and the child's 
 death, — the miscarriage, — and how most women of her type 
 feel about the whole affair. 
 
 "And what would I do if I became pregnant again, if I 
 were pregnant. . . ." Observe how personal the dream is, 
 how it always returns to the dreamer's own problems, how 
 the situation is always elaborated in terms of one's self, in 
 terms of one's own inner problems and conflicts. "Is it 
 worth while to run even the shadow of a risk when you do 
 not want children? . . . Probably abstinence is best, but I 
 for one become so torpid or so nervous when I practice it 
 long. . . ." The meaning of the dream is now clear. It 
 represents a hidden wish, to wit, not to be pregnant or in 
 the event of pregnancy to have a miscarriage. 
 
 From the analysis of the above dreams, we may see how 
 the psychic material always revolves around the ego and is 
 elaborated in terms of the individual's inner strivings and 
 desires, and how every element in the dream is overdeter- 
 mined or ananifoldly determined.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 
 
 Thus far I have attempted to show you the mechanisms as 
 we find them first in the normal and then in the abnormal, 
 or more definitely, in the neurosis. I endeavored to make 
 clear how we apply the Freudian psychology to every-day 
 faulty actions, to wit, to dreams, to neurotic symptoms and 
 other abnormal conditions. Beginning with this hour I wish 
 to give you a brief survey of the most common forms of 
 insanity. 
 
 The difference between a nervous disease and a mental 
 disease is very marked ; there is as vast a difference between 
 them as there is, we might say, between an Dementia 
 ordinary cold and tuberculosis. An insanity, a p^cox 
 psychosis, is a deep-reaching mental disturbance. Without 
 any further attempt at definition, for the psychosis is very 
 difficult to define, we may consider an individual insane 
 whose actions, whose general behavior, are foreign to his en- 
 vironments. The difference between a nervous condition 
 and an insanity, then, should be sought in the degree and 
 character of reaction toward the environment. 
 
 When we study one of the most common forms of in- 
 sanity, dementia praecox, we find that it represents very 
 definite characteristics. It was originally called by that 
 name because it was supposed to be a dementia present in 
 young people. As a matter of fact, it is neither a dementia 
 nor is it confined always to young people, although probably 
 75 to 80 per cent, of the cases are between sixteen and thirty. 
 
 253
 
 254 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 It was also designated by some authors as a mental disease 
 of puberty, for it manifests itself in a great many cases at 
 about that age. We may define the disease as a progressive, 
 mental disturbance, its main characteristic being an emo- 
 tional deterioration. 
 
 The outstanding characteristic of the prsecox is his com- 
 plete indifference to the outside world. Take, for instance, 
 a concrete case, — that of a high school girl of about fifteen 
 years of age. According to the history given to me by the 
 mother she was perfectly well up to about five months ago, 
 when she became "nervous :" she now sits around in the house 
 insouciant and listless, does not care to dress, takes no in- 
 terest in school or studies. When we investigate the case 
 more closely we find that there were slight manifestations of 
 the disease long before then, but that it was only since five 
 months ago that the parents began to realize that the girl 
 was not just lazy but actually sick. The average person does 
 not realize usually the gravity of the condition until a report 
 comes from school that Miss so-and-so absolutely neglects 
 her work and is uninterested and indifferent. But it is a 
 sure sign that there is danger ahead when a girl who has 
 been apparently well suddenly becomes indifferent to the 
 things that interest the average young woman of her age. 
 The average girl likes to dress well, is very anxious to appear 
 well in the eyes of others, feels badly when she does not get 
 along in her studies. But the prsecoxes do not care about 
 these things. 
 
 When the prsecox develops into the full condition he 
 presents a rather typical picture. The main characteristic 
 is, as I said, an emotional deterioration; there is absolutely 
 no emotional reaction. One of the diagnostic points that I 
 would point out to students in the hospital in the examina- 
 tion of such patients was to take a prsecox and bid him put 
 out his tongue, when I would get a long pin and say to the
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 255 
 
 students: "Now I am going to stick this through the pa- 
 tient's tongue." And I would pretend to do so. Ordinarily, 
 even if the patient thinks that I am only joking, he with- 
 draws his tongue, but the praecox sits quite unconcerned, 
 with his tongue out. Indeed he would not object even if I 
 were actually to try to stick the pin through his tongue. 
 And similarly, light a match and thrust it before his eyes, 
 and he will sit quiet and undisturbed, whereas any other 
 person would close his eyes at once. You can singe a 
 praecox's eyebrows and he would not close his eyes. One 
 author declares that you can shoot a cannon near him and 
 he would not move. He is absolutely indifferent to the out- 
 side world. 
 
 Originally a great many physicians who were not ac- 
 quainted with the deeper aspects of dementia praecox con- 
 sidered it a masturbatic insanity, and as a matter of fact, 
 there are doctors to-day who still consider it as such. I 
 may have told you previously, masturbation does no mental or 
 physical harm. It is a very common practice and most of 
 the authorities who have investigated the subject claim that 
 it is found in 100 per cent, of people. In the case of the 
 average normal boy or girl the act is performed usually under 
 cover, in some hiding place. But when the young person be- 
 comes indifferent and begins to develop dementia praecox, he 
 will have no scruples in masturbating anywheres, with the 
 result that the parents often catch him in the act. They 
 consider it a vicious habit and try to get the child to break it. 
 Then probably three or four months or a year later when 
 they are actually convinced that the person is insane they 
 inform the doctor that they know only too well the cause of 
 his condition: "he has abused himself." But this is far 
 from the truth. All the cases that I have observed that were 
 presumably due to masturbation were only cases of dementia 
 praecox. From the very outset, there was a marked emo-
 
 256 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 tional indifference, the feelings were dulled, and the patient 
 would masturbate quite openly whenever the impulse moved 
 him. It is because of this accidental relation between 
 masturbation and dementia prsecox that some old psychia- 
 trists have described the disease as a form of masturbational 
 insanity. There is no such disease. 
 
 Another characteristic of the praecox is that he pays no 
 attention to any one; he absolutely refuses to do what you 
 tell him, and if he does carry out what he was bidden to, he 
 does so in a mechanical way. His handshake is another 
 diagnostic point in these cases. The average person who 
 takes and gives emotions freely gives you a healthy hand- 
 shake, you feel that he is transmitting his feelings. If a 
 dementia praecox is finally moved to give his hand, he does so 
 mechanically, he extends it stiffly, barely touching the prof- 
 fered hand. 
 
 In the advanced stage of the disease such patients sit in 
 one place for weeks and months. I have observed some of 
 them for as many as four or five years, every day they 
 would resume their usual position and remain there, going 
 through the same mannerisms. I have seen a man incessant- 
 ly rub the top of his head, as he walked the floor, until he de- 
 veloped a very prominent tonsure there. Others will go 
 about and use what we call "verbigerations," stereotyped ex- 
 pressions. They may start with a phrase such as "I don't 
 want to do it," and continue to repeat it without end. When 
 they do this every day for a year there are gradual elisions 
 and only the person who had heard them first begin it can 
 know what they are talking about. The same psychic proc- 
 ess is seen not only in speech manifestations, but in various 
 movements and actions, such as peculiarities in gait, writing, 
 etc. Then, too, some of them show what we already re- 
 ferred to in another connection as "catatonic" character- 
 istics, they assume rigid attitudes. I have seen a patient of
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 257 
 
 this type imitate the cross, standing in the same position and 
 staring at the sun for hours and hours until he was forced 
 in for fear of sun-stroke. In a similar manner they react 
 toward food and other necessities of life. They gobble 
 their food down as though they were starved to death ; very 
 often they take such big chunks that they choke to death. 
 I have been called in a number of times to save such a patient 
 from suffocation, but sometimes the physician arrives too 
 late to save him. That is why in every dining-room in the 
 insane asylum there are instruments always ready for just 
 such an emergency. 
 
 The patients also have certain hallucinations and delusions 
 by which they are constantly controlled. When we delve 
 into their lives we find that these delusions and hallucinations 
 are by no means as senseless and meaningless as the average 
 person would suppose, that there is a cause for them. We 
 find that the patient is living in a world of his own, experi- 
 encing over and over again some episode, living through 
 some wish in a delusionary way. To get him out of himself 
 for a little while, to gain entry into his little isolated world 
 requires untold strength and endless patience. 
 
 When I was in the hospital for the insane at Zurich I 
 observed the case of an American girl, born in Kentucky, 
 who had been an inmate in the asylum for years. She had 
 to be kept in bed because she would not keep herself clean. 
 She would sit there in bed the live-long day with her head 
 buried between her knees, her eyes closed, in a peculiarly 
 rigid attitude. She had never talked since she came to the 
 hospital. Occasionally she would say something quite un- 
 expectedly but no one could find out what she was talking 
 about. Professor Bleuler informed me of a patient whom 
 he had had of that type, a catatonic dementia prrecox. He 
 decided once to see to what extent he could influence her to 
 dress and get out of bed without resorting to force; he
 
 258 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 wished to see to what extent suggestion could be utilized 
 on her. To the average sane person suggestions can be 
 readily made, but these patients are shut-in and practically 
 inaccessible. Professor Bleuler told me that he talked to the 
 patient for hours at end before she dressed and went where 
 he desired. I decided to perform the same experiment upon 
 this woman. I went into the ward one afternoon and talked 
 until I was proverbially blue in the face. She finally looked 
 up and I felt highly rewarded considering that she had not 
 done that for years. I said to her : "Aren't you ashamed 
 of yourself lying around like that? Dress and I'll take you 
 for a walk." I had her dressed, brought to my office, and 
 for two full days she behaved like any normal person. She 
 revealed to me her whole story. I found that she was ex- 
 periencing symbolically an episode that occurred at her home 
 in Kentucky. From what I gathered, it would seem that she 
 was reproducing a seduction. She imagined that the young 
 man was there with her in the hospital, talking to her all the 
 time, while she just listened. She talked nicely to me and 
 behaved in a perfectly normal way. But I had enough ex- 
 perience by that time to know that it was too good to last. 
 On the third day, as I was anxiously waiting for her to be 
 brought in, I received a telephone to the effect that my pa- 
 tient had relapsed into her old condition, that she was faring 
 just as badly as ever. I dare say if I had sufficient physical 
 endurance to perform the experiment again, I might have 
 aroused her again for a while. 
 
 Any marked emotional affect always tends to arouse such 
 patients from their congealed state, to make them forget, as 
 it were. We see this when they are operated. I observed 
 a patient of this type in the Central Islip State Hospital who 
 did not talk for almost five or six years. For two and a 
 half years I had to feed him by means of a tube through the 
 nostril, for he refused to eat. He looked cadaverous and
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 259 
 
 yellow, veritably like wax. One day we examined him and 
 found that he was suffering from an internal inflammatory 
 condition; we felt that it was advisable to operate. I ad- 
 ministered the anaesthetic, and it was passing strange to hear 
 him plead with me not to operate. To say the least I was quite 
 pleased to hear his voice. When he came to himself from 
 the ether, he behaved like any sane person in a general 
 hospital, he asked me how he was, what his temperature was, 
 etc. I remember going into the dining room and imparting 
 the interesting news to some of my colleagues. "So and so 
 is normal now." They looked at me in blank wonder. "He 
 is normal like any one else," I repeated. They talked to 
 him and normal indeed he was. "Look here, why did you 
 act like a crazy fellow and give me all that trouble of feeding 
 you — it is a disagreeable business," I said to him. He did 
 not answer; he smiled. For three weeks he was in bed, re- 
 covering from the operation. I informed him that I would 
 soon send him home, and he was pleased. But one morning 
 I came and, to my profound disappointment found him there 
 in the same old place, in the same posture, with his head 
 down, — the same old inaccessible praecox. It was as though 
 the few weeks were completely wiped out of his life. I 
 have seen a number of such cases in which an affect made 
 the patient react. In this particular case, the fear of death 
 and the will to live made him forget his abnormal world. 
 The moment, however, he felt well again, he withdrew into 
 his old little world and would not come out. 
 
 Patients of this character are absolutely shut-in and their 
 history reveals that they are always more or less so, they 
 never mixed well with their fellows, they never showed any 
 deep emotional rapport. There are many cases of the same 
 type, though of course by no means as pronounced, who 
 show bizarre expressions, who act peculiarly. No one can 
 understand them, they are generally considered crazy. They
 
 2 6o PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 are of the dementia praecox type, but not fully developed. 
 They may have an episode which clears up to a certain ex- 
 tent; its remnants remain, however, and continue to mani- 
 fest themselves in the person's behavior. I know the case of 
 a man, for instance, who as a boy was extremely precocious. 
 He was far ahead of his class, he performed many an un- 
 usual feat. But the teachers were often surprised when of 
 a sudden he would get up in the class and say something that 
 no one understood. At the age of thirteen he left home and 
 joined a troop of actors in England. Great things were pre- 
 dicted for him on the stage, but after a while, he ran off, 
 tramped about for some time and then came to the United 
 States where he worked at all sorts of jobs. Suddenly, he 
 disappeared. One day when in a cafe, while discussing the 
 subject of bravery and courage, some one remarked that "to 
 commit suicide requires the higher form of cowardice." He 
 vehemently denied that, and to prove his point shot himself 
 in the head. He was taken to a hospital where he recovered. 
 If I were to describe to you all that he had experienced by 
 the time I saw him at twenty-eight, we would have a 
 veritable Odyssey. But he never had any direct delusions, 
 he had merely fleeting hallucinations and delusions upon 
 which he acted rapidly. There is no question about his being 
 a rather mild type of dementia praecox, mild in the sense of 
 the depth of the symptoms. 
 
 The average case of dementia praecox dements, the patient 
 forms his system and then settles down. Mr. N.'s case is 
 typical. He had been ill for six to eight years ; he was very 
 hallucinatory and delusionary. He would leave his home 
 and settle down for a time in some out of town hotel. I 
 first saw him out in a southern city, I went over to him and 
 called him by his name. He did not so much as glance at 
 me, despite the unusual circumstance of hearing his name 
 called in a totally strange city. I had to convince the doctors
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 261 
 
 there that the man was insane. I asked one of them to 
 bump into him to see what he would do. The doctor was 
 afraid to take the risk, for the patient was quite a husky 
 fellow, and so I bumped into him myself. The man did 
 not say a word, he walked on without paying me the slightest 
 attention. The doctors could not understand how a man 
 could stay there in a hotel for years, pay for his board and 
 room regularly, and still be insane. But the hotel keeper 
 declared that he saw all the while that there was something 
 peculiar about the man: he would stay in his room practi- 
 cally all the time, wore the same suit all the time, the same 
 hat, the same pair of shoes, came down to eat promptly at a 
 certain time, and was most methodical in his habits. Such 
 patients are orderly and regular to a point of nausea. 
 Methodicalness is not necessarily a sign of dementia praecox, 
 but we may well think of the disease when we see people 
 who are so extremely methodical. 
 
 The next group of insanity with which I wish to acquaint 
 you, the manic depressive group, is very widespread. It is 
 designated by that name because, as we have 
 already said, on a previous occasion, it runs in Depressive 
 
 J _ . Insanity 
 
 certain phases or cycles. Sometimes the patient 
 is excited, exhilarated, restless, manic, and sometimes he is 
 melancholy, retarded in thought and action, — depressed. 
 Suddenly a wave of excitement lasting a few days, weeks, 
 or months, usually two to six months, will come over the 
 patient: the emotions run up and gradually down and re- 
 main normal for a period. There then may follow another 
 similar wave. If you take the patient's history you will find 
 that during a life of twenty to thirty years he may have had 
 fifteen attacks or more. Sometimes this attack of excite- 
 ment is followed by an attack of depression ; the emotions go 
 down, the patient feels downcast and depressed. Some pa-
 
 262 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 tients run a different course. They may just begin with a 
 depression, get over it and be a little exalted, just enough to 
 feel well and exhilarated without being regarded as in any 
 way abnormal, and they are perfectly well. Then probably 
 a few years later there comes another depression, and so the 
 case continues. When our knowledge of this group of insan- 
 ity was rather slight, we designated this phase of the disease 
 as a separate case. This state of depression and retardation 
 was designated as melancholia, which literally means "black 
 bile." The term came from the old Greeks who thought 
 that a person who was depressed had liver trouble and that 
 when he was purged, he became well. It is for this reason 
 that physicians have used purging for such cases. This idea 
 is almost entirely disregarded now. 
 
 One very serious danger in this phase of the disease, that 
 is, in the depressive state, is that the patient may commit 
 suicide. You will often read in the newspapers of a nervous 
 breakdown followed by suicide ; we are undoubtedly dealing 
 here with a case of the depressive type of manic depressive 
 insanity, for there are few other forms of mental disturb- 
 ances that terminate in suicide. I do not think I am exag- 
 gerating when I assert that probably 85 to 90 per cent, of all 
 suicides belong to the depressive type of this disease. 
 
 There are serious dangers also in the manic state of the 
 disease. When the attack comes in a very mild form, that 
 is, when the patient is just a little exhilarated and feels like 
 one who has had a drink or two, he is liable to jump into all 
 sorts of reckless ventures. I have seen women who married 
 during such a state and were deeply disappointed when 
 they became normal once more. I am convinced that many 
 cases of marital unhappiness are due just to this fact, one 
 or the other of the couple was in such an abnormal state at the 
 time of marriage ; when things subsided and became normal,
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 263 
 
 there was a mental upset, husband and wife could not agree. 
 It is like marrying when in a state of intoxication ; unless you 
 can continue drinking, matters cannot fare well. I might 
 inform you that I have actually testified in one such case 
 where the marriage was annulled on the ground that the 
 man had had a number of manic attacks previous to the mar- 
 riage, and we could say with more than a certain amount of 
 probability that he was suffering from an attack at the time 
 he married. 
 
 Another danger in this phase of the disease is that of ex- 
 haustion. In the extreme cases of excitement, the patient is 
 constantly active; it is necessary to give him the strongest 
 kind of medications and sedatives to keep him quiet. If he 
 is not confined, he very often continues to talk and move 
 about so recklessly and vehemently that he simply develops 
 some intercurrent disease and dies. It is remarkable how 
 many of these cases are at large and taken for alcoholics. 
 I have met them on the streets and in parks and on a few 
 occasions have had them taken to the hospital. The casual 
 onlooker observes them perform to his delight and amuse- 
 ment and regards them as alcoholics, but the trained observer 
 usually can make the diagnosis in a minute or two. 
 
 The essential difference between the manic-depressive 
 cases and dementia praecox is that the manic-depressive pa- 
 tient always recovers under general conditions and never 
 shows any mental scar ; there is no intellectual disturbance. 
 That is why a great many physicians would not designate the 
 manic-depressive patient as a case of insanity, unless of 
 course he is extreme and delusional; they regard the 
 disease as merely an emotional disturbance. But when the 
 dementia praecox seemingly recovers from the first episode, 
 he always shows to the trained observer the dementia praecox 
 reaction, there is always left a mental scar.
 
 264 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 There is one more form of insanity that I wish to touch 
 upon, namely, paranoia. This is a chronic, progressive form 
 paranoia of insanity which is absolutely incurable. When 
 you examine a paranoiac thoroughly you find that he always 
 presented more or less definite characteristics, he always 
 showed the type of mental make-up associated with the 
 disease. But we usually do not see anything abnormal or 
 maladjusted in his mode of reaction until he is thrown on 
 his own resources or, generally speaking, until he has to 
 come in actual contact with the environment. At the age 
 of puberty we already begin to notice certain distinct pe- 
 culiarities. First of all, the patient is a sort of quiet, re- 
 served personality, an individual who takes no interest in 
 the trivialities of life. The history from childhood shows 
 that he never played like others, never made friends like 
 others. He may have had perhaps some acquaintances but 
 never a friend in whom he confided. The normal person is 
 always drawn to some one in whom he can confide. Con- 
 sciously or unconsciously he realizes that it is unhealthy to 
 harbor secrets, for every secret contains something wrong 
 or forbidden. But the paranoiac has never formed any 
 lasting intimate friendship, he has never learned how to give 
 and take emotions freely. He starts out in life with that all- 
 too-serious attitude; the element of love which manifests 
 itself in childhood in play and later on in friendship and sex 
 either is not developed with him, or its normal development is 
 retarded and it is turned inward upon himself. Upon reach- 
 ing the period of puberty, therefore, when an emotional outlet 
 is absolutely necessary, he finds himself in a critical position: 
 an emotional wave of puberty comes on, and unable to place 
 it properly, he begins to find fault with the environment. 
 The young man may feel that he has not received the amount 
 of attention or friendship that is properly due him. The 
 young lady may complain that people are constantly pointing
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 265 
 
 at her in an insinuating way, or that she has been slighted 
 in some way. The situation usually resolves itself into this : 
 "people do not like me." Of course, emotions beget 
 emotions, if you do not like others, others will not like you, 
 if you want friends, you must show friendship. Emerson 
 has put it very well : "Love and you shall be loved." The 
 world is so full of people that no one will worry about an 
 individual who does not come forward himself. The para- 
 noiac projects his own feelings to the outside world, and by 
 an all too natural mode of reasoning, he finds that the fault 
 lies not with him but with the outside world: "People do 
 not like me" — and since no one likes to depreciate himself, 
 the logical explanation at once suggests itself, — "because I am 
 better than they are, therefore they do not like me." As a 
 matter of fact that may be sometimes true, the person may 
 be in a certain respect better than the people in his environ- 
 ment. 
 
 And so when the paranoiac reaches an age when he would 
 like to compete, he feels himself too weak or too worthy to 
 do so and the result is that he is left to himself, his morbid 
 ideas developing all the while more and more. Gradually 
 he begins to elaborate who he is, he cannot admit, for in- 
 stance, that he belongs to an ordinary plebeian family, he de- 
 cides that he must be of better stock. Not long ago I ob- 
 served a typical paranoiac; he imagined that he was an il- 
 legitimate son of Louis XIV. His life history was ex- 
 tremely interesting. His father was about thirty years 
 older than his mother, so that when the patient was a little 
 boy the father was an old man. The normal relationship, 
 then, such as one finds between father and son was here im- 
 possible, the discrepancy in age was too great. That is why 
 the boy never developed a normal association with his com- 
 panions. Besides, the father was unusually attached to the 
 child and insisted on having the boy with him all the time.
 
 266 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 Thus the patient grew up to be a morbid, introspective boy, 
 and as he grew older, he gradually developed and elaborated 
 his delusional system. 
 
 Paranoia turns out to reproduce a primitive condition, the 
 individual, one might say, regresses to an atavistic state 
 where he believes that no one is his friend. When we lived 
 in caves, when we were Troglodytes, the human being would 
 not dare to put out his head for fear lest his neighbors would 
 kill him; like animals, everybody worked exclusively for 
 himself, there was nothing in common, there was no sense 
 of mutual interest. Gradually with the advance of civiliza- 
 tion not only did we make peace with the inhabitants of the 
 neighboring cave, but we got out of caves altogether and 
 began to build houses. Now we can even sleep with our 
 windows open and there is no danger. In other words, we 
 are departing from all those conditions which existed in the 
 most primordial state. It is therefore important to free the 
 child's development of all such primitive tendencies and teach 
 him to give and take emotions freely, for otherwise he is 
 likely either to continue in a primitive state or not know 
 how to place his emotions properly and become neurotic. 
 
 The outstanding mechanisms in the paranoiac are these : 
 First, delusions of reference, by which we mean, falsely con- 
 struing whatever occurs in his environment to refer to his 
 own person. Talk with some one, it matters not about 
 what, for example, and the paranoiac will insist that you 
 are talking about him. He may hear a sermon in church and 
 straightway refer it to himself by proving that the minister 
 quoted a certain passage from the Bible with which he was 
 only too well familiar. In time he begins to develop perse 
 cutory ideas, he begins to think that people are against him. 
 Usually he chooses for his target some intimate person in the 
 family. When he fixes on some one, when he actually 
 finds a person whom he likes very much, the attachment
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 267 
 
 usually takes a most violent course for a while, when a 
 violent process of disillusionment sets in: the new-found 
 friend then becomes a traitor and is usually taken as the 
 arch conspirator. Gradually the circle widens and widens, 
 the conspiracy becomes more and more involved, at first, 
 it may be only a brother-in-law or a classmate, later it is 
 the whole world that is his enemy. It is remarkable how 
 people of this type rationalize a situation. Ask one of them 
 why he knows that detectives were following him from New 
 York to Washington, and he declares : "When I registered, 
 the clerk remarked to another clerk, 'Here he is.' " That 
 was proof sufficient. I have seen a man who actually went 
 around the world : he maintained that wherever he came, he 
 saw detectives at his heels, heard voices and saw people 
 watching him. Finally he decided to return to New York 
 to give himself up. He did so, and was sent to the asylum. 
 It took me a few days to take down his history. Only a 
 paranoiac could have gone through all the privations that he 
 had experienced. In the course of time the patient begins 
 to reason why he is persecuted, he begins to elaborate just 
 who he is. And when he finally becomes convinced that he 
 is an emperor, or some other great personality he does not 
 fail to act like one. If he believes himself to be Christ or a 
 savior of some kind, he plays the appropriate role. To the 
 average observer his reasoning is most bizarre, sometimes 
 though, it is very ingenious. 
 
 There are all kinds of paranoiacs. The original ones are, 
 of course, rare ; by those I mean the patients whom you have 
 to observe and study for a long time before you can actually 
 decide that they are insane. They are often too clever to 
 betray themselves ; they realize that they are being examined 
 and are very guarded. You have to be equally clever to get 
 at the proof, you have to hit the right moment to find the clue 
 to the system. It is remarkable how many paranoiacs are
 
 268 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 taken to court on a writ of habeas corpus and discharged as 
 sane. In one hospital for the insane that I visited last fall, 
 it was interesting to observe that practically every one of the 
 inmates had a legal paper drawn in accordance with the legal 
 form, applying for a writ of habeas corpus. Many of the 
 patients thus discharged later commit crimes and homicide. 
 They are so clever that they often elude the average judge 
 or jury; no one but an expert in mental diseases can see 
 that they are insane. Thus, I had an interesting experience 
 with a classmate of mine, a man of the typical paranoid 
 character as I described it, a typical shut-in personality. 
 When he was taken out on a writ of habeas corpus his 
 mother, wife, brothers, principal of the school where he used 
 to teach testified that he was very insane. No one had any 
 interest whatsoever in keeping him in the asylum. His own 
 relatives and friends, and at least half a dozen teachers from 
 his school, who were all sorry for him, all testified to his 
 peculiar actions. After a trial lasting ten days the jury was 
 out about ten minutes and brought in a verdict that the 
 patient was sane. To a jury of laymen, the man's defense 
 seemed altogether plausible, and yet the patient was absolute- 
 ly insane. The man was released and he might have killed 
 many people and caused irreparable harm during the in- 
 terval that elapsed between his discharge and his final com- 
 mitment to the insane asylum. 
 
 When a case of this character reaches the newspapers, it 
 is often held up to the public as a very fine example of how 
 doctors kept an absolutely sane person in the asylum. We 
 have seen a recent example of this deplorable condition in 
 the case of the B. sisters. These two women are just as 
 crazy as any two inmates of any State Hospital. They 
 represent what we call a "folies a deux," a form of in- 
 sanity which affects two people in the same family; some- 
 times I have seen it affect three people. It is significant
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 269 
 
 that though these sisters were discharged as insane to 
 the custody of some one under bond, the newspapers 
 vociferously continued to protest that here were two sisters 
 who were kept in the asylum despite the fact that they were 
 not insane. The fact of the matter is that the state hospitals 
 are overcrowded ; they have 25 per cent, more patients than 
 they can accommodate ; they are only too pleased to be able 
 to discharge patients. The State Hospital in question at 
 that very time actually had a campaign requesting relatives 
 and friends to relieve them of those patients whom they con- 
 sidered well enough to get along at home. On the other 
 hand, the doctors are in duty bound not to discharge patients 
 who are considered dangerous ; how can they discharge pa- 
 tients who are distinctly anti-social, who feel that the whole 
 world is conspiring against them? As for those folk that 
 imagine that doctors take malicious pleasure in keeping people 
 in the insane asylum or profit by the patient's confinement, 
 they should be reminded that the physician receives a stipu- 
 lated salary whether he has one patient or fifty, and that far 
 from taking pleasure in keeping him confined, it is in his in- 
 terest to see him discharged. In the old days there was the 
 prevailing notion that the patients were killed or poisoned in 
 the asylum ; to-day we are doing our utmost to have the lay 
 world realize that the insane are regarded and treated as 
 sick people, to be discharged as soon as they are well. 
 Another difficulty is that the lay person usually considers a 
 person insane only when he stands on his head and yells non- 
 sense; he considers him perfectly normal if he answers ques- 
 tions and talks more or less connectedly and intelligently, as 
 for instance, in cases of paranoia. We have been trying for 
 years to have the lay public realize the true facts of the 
 matter. But when a case such as that of the B. sisters 
 is read in the newspapers, all the old stupid prejudices are 
 revived once more. Untold harm is done thereby.
 
 270 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 Before leaving the subject of paranoia I wish to read to 
 you parts of the history of a paranoiac. I am sure that it 
 ought to prove instructive for, in the first place, it will show 
 you more or less concretely the progress of the disease, how 
 the patient gradually becomes more and more detached from 
 reality, and secondly, what an important part the sex element 
 plays in all such mental disturbances, the patient's history 
 showing a distinct maladjustment in his love affair. The 
 patient is a man 36 years of age, who at my request wrote 
 out the history himself. 
 
 "Bringing up strict, with religious atmosphere, not al- 
 lowed to play with other children. Were of a somewhat 
 'sissy type/ but fairly good scholars. Father not at all 
 nervous, but religious and rather strict. Mother extremely 
 nervous. Favors one twin, not myself, possibly because she 
 is interested in medicine, and he wants to become a doctor. 
 
 "First vivid impression, quite young, four or five years, 
 used to undress after bathing with brother and sister 
 two years older. Sneaking curiosity as to secondary sexual 
 characteristics of sister, looking at her with pleasure, when 
 unperceived. Remember remark of aunt to my mother, 'too 
 old to dress in same room together with sister.' This roused 
 a sense of guilt as to sex, which is still subconsciously re- 
 tained. My brother remembers also an experience in the 
 bathroom with my sister, each one of the three showing 
 parts to other. At the age of six or seven vivid remembrance 
 of homosexual experience. About this time experience with 
 the genital, it had to be treated." 
 
 He then cites a number of experiences. He dwells at 
 length on his homosexuality which he practiced with his 
 brother and which consisted simply in masturbation. He 
 says: 
 
 "We kept that up until six or eight years of age, when 
 we realized its import. I remember arguing with myself
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 271 
 
 'This cannot be wrong, because it gives pleasure without pain 
 or wrong consequences.' Later the practice was stopped 
 and I found an intense nervous reaction in looking through 
 cracks of doors at my sister undressing. At school had 
 faint 'crushes' on boys. At college had a 'crush' on a man 
 two years ahead. No sex impressions, but a desire to be of 
 some service to him, liked to be near him." 
 
 Here he gives a great many experiences of that type at 
 the age of 22 or 23 years. Speaking about women he says, 
 "Have only been in love once. The girl was a friend of my 
 sister's, my older sister, the one now in a sanitarium. This 
 sister had 'crushes' on girl friends and teachers, it ended in 
 an infatuation, abnormal girl, subjects to attack of insanity. 
 This girl friend has since married and has children. She 
 was normal, but had led a rather repressed sex life, she was 
 a 'nice' girl. I remember that I imagined myself to fall in 
 love with her in this way. She was a twin of two sisters. 
 Had met them when about 16 or 17 years old. They appre- 
 ciated us and we liked them very much. One time driving 
 home from a theater party, I noticed her holding hands with 
 my sister. She had a 'crush' on my sister, as other young 
 college girls did. There was nothing wrong in this re- 
 lationship between the two. I was in a rather soft mood, 
 and I aspired to deserve the same affection as my sister re- 
 ceived. 'If she would only hold my hand like that.' And 
 I made up my mind that I was in love with her. There was 
 no sexual attraction. It was a rather sublimated emotion 
 that I felt towards her. Afterwards I met her in the subway 
 with my brother. She sat down and I sat down beside her. 
 I think she would rather have had my brother, I had the 
 same rather soft, sublimated, tender emotion at that time, but 
 I was nervous and excited and my heart beat very fast. 
 Later my brother and I were asked out to her home over the 
 week end. Hearing that, I became nervous and excited at
 
 272 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the idea of seeing her. The whole thing- was in my mind. 
 However, there was no sex feeling. I was inwardly rest- 
 less, but outwardly I was rather self-possessed, while out 
 there. I slept little and felt as if I had fever. I remember 
 walking with her and my brother, and running races also, 
 in which I made a great effort to shine. I tried to talk to 
 her, but her attitude was favorable towards my brother who 
 liked her in an impersonal way. She did not have any 
 strikingly emphasized secondary characteristics of her sex, 
 which was rather the reason I liked her." What he means 
 is that she did not look like a big woman, but was more of a 
 boyish type. 
 
 "I remember sitting indoors, on a sofa, and her inviting 
 me to sit beside her as in the subway. At that time I felt 
 that to do so would be dishonest, since she had too much 
 money for me to be happily married to her. My thoughts 
 were socialistic at that time. Yet I had an impulse to do so, 
 and I loved her in that way. I did not see her again, but 
 did not forget her at all, always hoping to see her by accident. 
 One time I actually got my nerve to call, but she was out." 
 
 You can see thus far what difficulty this boy had in ad- 
 justing himself to his love life. 
 
 "Another reason I did not press my suit was that I had 
 heard that another man was violently in love with her. In- 
 stead of pressing my suit, I felt no jealousy, as I ought to, 
 but argued that if he was madly in love with her, as he was, 
 and I only in a very spiritual way, I could yield better than 
 he. She married a third man and it was a great blow to 
 me. My emotion was thus always repressed, and as I ap- 
 peared self-possessed no one realized it, but altogether I was 
 very much perturbed. I had pneumonia a year afterwards, 
 being in a rundown condition. I had two trained nurses 
 but repressed any sex feeling because it would not be sin- 
 cere. I enjoyed talking to them and was interested in their
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 273 
 
 ideas. I have always clung to the ideal which this girl 
 seemed to fit. I transferred my interest to my studies, and 
 had no friends. 
 
 "All this occurred while this homosexual practice was 
 being carried on between my brother and myself. The next 
 incident was that up at a certain lake my brother met a girl 
 towards whom he had much the same feeling in a more 
 transient phase. This period marked the end of our homo- 
 sexual practice. We were really ignorant of its real import. 
 Altogether we vaguely realized it was wrong. I felt a slight 
 attraction towards this girl, who was beautiful, but rather 
 stood apart, and let my brother do the talking. This time 
 the girl appeared to discourage my brother, and since then I 
 have called on her several times. 
 
 "After going through college and beginning the senior part 
 of law, just before examination time, my sister, who 
 had been long ailing, suddenly became sick and had to be 
 taken to the hospital." He enters at length into this matter. 
 
 "During college and professional school I had formed the 
 habit of watching girls undress by means of field glasses. I 
 did this, sometimes masturbating through an excited im- 
 agination. Toward the servants I had no sex feeling, I 
 thought little of sex except with regard to this field glass 
 habit, which I carried on at intervals. I kept this up 'til last 
 fall. 
 
 "After trying to get a job in vain last fall, (the war had 
 affected the situation somewhat) at my brother's suggestion 
 I went to Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. I spent 
 two weeks sight seeing, then took a laboratory course. I 
 made efforts to take an interest in girls, flirting with them in 
 street cars. Baltimore is a small city, and some of the girls 
 flirt very easily. I went to the Lyric Theatre, where the 
 fashionable concerts and plays were given. I lived in a 
 hotel, but did not meet any women at all, except at Uni-
 
 274 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 versity classes. I was interested in the Ph. D. courses, and 
 was thinking of taking a degree. I heard that two of the 
 Professors at the school were leaders in Baltimore society. 
 Desiring to take for once a real interest in girls, and hoping 
 to meet one I could fall in love with, I made up my mind to 
 speak to them. I went to Professor B. and told him that 
 there was a case of insanity in the family and gave the im- 
 pression that it had to do with sex, and also that I would 
 like to get into Baltimore society. He was very nice to me, 
 and when I asked to be introduced to some girls, he said 
 that he would see about it. Apparently I did not show the 
 proper sex interest, for when I next went to him, he said, that 
 the roundabout way was best, and also said, 'Go with normal 
 men first,' and smiled, implying sex experience is necessary. 
 He told me to join the Johns Hopkins Club, which I did. At 
 this time I changed my place from the Hotel to a boarding 
 house, because it was cheaper, and the food was better. I 
 remember one story told in my hearing at the club." And 
 then the patient relates some sort of pun which I never 
 could make out. 
 
 "The second time upon my return from a game, I had a 
 queer experience. I was standing in front of the waiting 
 station, flirting a bit with the girls who passed with 'middies,' 
 when there came out two middies with girls and a chaperon, 
 evidently their mother. One middy carried a suit case, and 
 as I passed one of the girls nudged me with the case as it 
 brushed by me. I felt an interest in these girls but did not 
 look them over. The mother was evidently a very fine lady 
 and they were fashionably dressed. The light haired one 
 was rather good looking I thought at the time. The other 
 one was dark and rather peculiar looking and had 'sad' eyes. 
 This one sat alone, the mother and the light haired one on the 
 other side of the car, one seat back. The rest of the car con- 
 sisted largely of a rather tough crowd. I sat in the rear seat,
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 275 
 
 but sufficiently near to keep an eye on the one who nudged 
 me. The peculiar looking one seemed to be the object of at- 
 tention especially to one man, and the light haired one evi- 
 dently became much worried, and looked back at me con- 
 tinually. At last, this was before I saw this Professor B. 
 I thought I should not meet any girls on account of insanity 
 in the family. I debated whether to intervene or not. I 
 finally decided upon watchful waiting, but the distress of the 
 three women increased, until finally I was about to get up 
 and look at the man, who got up himself and walked into 
 the smoker." 
 
 This idea that the girl nudged him was of course only 
 imaginary, as well as the situation regarding the man. 
 
 "This produced of course a great sensation with the girls. 
 I had apparently made a hit. They smiled their thanks to 
 me, and I smiled back. Then they took off their hats and 
 wraps, and tried to flirt with me, arranging their hair. But 
 I saw no reason for picking them up, arguing that nice girls 
 should not be treated that way. When the electric car 
 stopped to change for Washington, they got out. The light- 
 haired girl's expression was peculiar, as if she had been hard 
 hit. The mother smiled at me rather scornfully, as if to 
 say, 'You'll find out who we are, don't worry,' and seemed 
 half angry at my attitude. I tried to convey that I would 
 have liked to meet them, but circumstances did not permit. I 
 later remembered that girl on account of the incident and 
 rather idealized her, and thought that she must be in 
 Washington society. 
 
 "Evidently in the South it is the custom when one person 
 wants to meet another, and for some reason cannot, to bring 
 them together at a play or concert. Anyway I saw shortly 
 afterwards both girls and picked them out by recognizing 
 them among a crowded audience. The first girl was a girl 
 of German descent, from the remarks that I heard at my
 
 276 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 boarding house, which evidently was a secret, for on leav- 
 ing for the Alumni meeting at X. they assured me that Balti- 
 more was Germania, with great emphasis. These remarks 
 were made while discussing nationality. I compared this 
 girl with the one I idealized and found I did not care for 
 her. 
 
 "A week later I went to a ball game and felt a sort of ex- 
 citement in my arm. People left hurriedly and there was a 
 sort of excitement of expectancy. A girl sitting next to 
 me looked all around the bleachers, as if I was to do the same 
 thing as all the others. Finally four or five girls came, and 
 the men behind me began to patter with their feet, as if I 
 was to walk around. I did so and by careful scrutiny was 
 able to locate my Washington friend. Under cold daylight, 
 she seemed a different girl, I had seen her at 6 o'clock, and 
 yet she had the same features and hair. She laughed at me, 
 and encrouched her shoulders over as if to call me down 
 from my high horse. After looking her over carefully I re- 
 turned to my former seat. A man seated nearby, made this 
 remark, 'Well, well, well,' evidently somewhat surprised at 
 my lack of gallantry. Before this and after this incident, 
 people began to look towards Washington when I passed 
 them. I considered this a Southern custom, made to help 
 along matrimony. And, after this the ball game continued 
 and also they began to turn their heads and indicate unclean 
 finger nails. After a particularly aggravating display of 
 these signs by a rather fashionable party, one of them said, 
 apparently to me, 'This is your last chance.' A lady at the 
 ball game, several times touched her mouth significantly, 
 and then stuck her fingers in her glove of the other hand, as 
 if to show what to think of, kissing and the sexual act 
 when I looked at girls, or what to do to be acceptable to 
 society." 
 
 You may thus see how nicely these symbolic actions are
 
 COMMON FORMS OF INSANITY 277 
 
 shown. He interprets everything in his own way, working 
 it out in conformity with his own delusional ideas. 
 
 He was to a lecture on physics, but to him it seemed full 
 of hints for him. "Work out these values and then we will 
 go on," which meant "I am to have sex experience, toil. My 
 inexperience prevented me from getting there. After this 
 I decided to come to New York, as there was nothing else to 
 do in the social line, no one conforming with my ideal. I 
 did so, and called on the girl of the B. L. socially, but 
 did not get to know her sufficiently to make advances." 
 
 There is nothing unusual about this case when we bear in 
 mind that it is a case of insanity. Its most noteworthy facts 
 are as follows : First, it is evident that this young man has 
 had an abnormal sexual life. There was a constant struggle 
 between sensuousness and chastity until the patient became 
 insane. He began with the autoerotic sexual outlet, mastur- 
 bation, which he was very anxious to suppress. In this he 
 succeeded for a time but soon returned to it. There then 
 followed the homosexuality with his own brother and a few 
 others. Finally he was confronted with the trying problem 
 of adjusting himself to heterosexuality, his failure in this 
 respect terminating in delusions. His whole delusional 
 system was that people were observing him and making re- 
 marks about him, disparaging, insulting remarks, because he 
 was unable to do his duty sexually; many girls were in- 
 terested in him, but he was too slow and not man enough to 
 respond to them. He believed that if he were sexually 
 normal, the women would have liked him ; he was not liked 
 because he had had no experiences with them. When the 
 patient was asked, therefore, why he did not go right ahead 
 and have experiences with women, he replied that he could 
 not, that he heard voices telling him that that would be 
 wrong and immoral. 
 
 We could continue to speak about the extreme mental
 
 278 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 cases, the psychoses, for many an hour more, but I feel that 
 what I have already told you should suffice to give you a 
 general appreciation of the subject, at any rate as far as our 
 purposes here are concerned. Before leaving the subject 
 entirely I wish to make this one point, namely, that even in 
 the so-called normal person there may be observed some of 
 those traits that I have pointed out in those extreme mental 
 disturbances. That is to say, besides people of the psycho- 
 neurotic make-up, the hysterics, compulsive neurotics, etc., 
 one meets in life also individuals who are distinctly of the 
 paranoid or dementia praecox or manic type. A great many 
 writers have thus come to the conclusion that when such in- 
 dividuals ever become insane, they always gravitate toward 
 that form of insanity that is compatible with their person- 
 ality. That is, when a person of the paranoid make-up be- 
 comes insane, he gravitates toward paranoia, a person of the 
 dementia praecox type toward dementia praecox. Through 
 careful observation and study of different individuals, par- 
 ticularly on the experimental basis afforded by the association 
 test, we may readily see these types, for we find that in- 
 dividuals show certain definite types of reactions to stimuli.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE ONLY CHILD 
 
 That there is really only a difference of degree between 
 the most abnormal and the so-called normal, and that the 
 degree can be measured in terms of environment can readily 
 be shown in cases where regardless of predisposition in con- 
 stitution, the environment alone impresses a definite stamp 
 on the individual. This can be readily seen in persons who 
 have been subjected to a special environment. I am refer- 
 ring to the only child. The only child has a special reaction 
 to the world which differs in every way from that of his 
 cousin, let us say, who has sisters and brothers. We also 
 find that the oldest son or daughter differs in every way 
 from the youngest son or daughter. 
 
 The oldest son differs from the others because his position 
 in his environment was such that he had to develop certain 
 characteristic traits. For one thing, he was more aggressive 
 than the others, because originally he was the only child in 
 the home, when the second child came, though only a year 
 later, he already had the advantage over his younger brother, 
 the advantage of strength and knowledge. But usually there 
 is more than the difference of a year. Moreover the parents 
 constantly urge the older brother to take care of the younger 
 boy. The result is that as time goes on there is the 
 tendency for the oldest son of the family to assume leader- 
 ship, so that when the father dies or is killed he becomes 
 virtually the head of the family. We see here how the in- 
 stitution of the crown prince developed; it was found that 
 
 279
 
 28o PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 when the father died, the oldest son was more fit to rule 
 than the others by virtue of his standing in the community 
 right in his own home. 
 
 And so it is with the "only" or "favorite" child; he too 
 occupies a special position in the home. Whether wilfully 
 or not, parents have always pampered and spoiled the only 
 child. When people love each other they usually enhance the 
 love-object: to the man his lady-love is the most charming 
 creature in the world, to the woman, her lover is the greatest 
 man on earth. After they have married a process of disil- 
 lusionment sets in ; the most charming woman becomes an 
 ordinary girl with all the weaknesses and shortcomings of 
 her sex, and the greatest man an ordinary human being. But 
 there is a compensation with the coming of the first child, 
 the gap begins to be filled, there develops a community of 
 interest between husband and wife. To the man there is a 
 compensation in his little girl in whom he tries to realize all 
 those ideals that he found in the woman when he first met 
 her but which seemed to have gone after living intimately 
 with her for some time. The little girl now occupies a 
 special position in the home, the father has a special interest 
 in her, and with no brother or sister to share her father's 
 affection the result is that she becomes spoiled. In a state of 
 nature, the male animal really takes no interest in the young. 
 He leaves them as soon as they are independent enough to 
 seek their own food. It is different with human beings, the 
 marriage institution devolves upon us the duty of living to- 
 gether. Some compensation is necessary and wherever there 
 is only one child, both parents turn to the child to fill the 
 emotional gap formed because of the disillusionment due to 
 the original enormous enhancement of the partner. 
 
 Another serious factor in the development of the only 
 child is that he meets with no competition at home. Where 
 there are three, four, or five children, as there normally
 
 THE ONLY CHILD 281 
 
 should be, there is constant conflict, they fight among each 
 other and thus learn to adjust themselves to the struggle 
 for existence. But take the little one who is kept in the 
 home with no one to oppose its will, on the contrary, whose 
 every wish is gratified and who is always guided and pro- 
 tected most jealously, who is master of all he surveys in the 
 home, what a pitiable sight this weakly brat presents when 
 put out into the world af the age of five or six! The poor 
 thing is helpless. He does not know how to act, he distrusts 
 everybody, he cannot get along with any one. 
 
 One of the most serious handicaps that the only child has 
 to cope with is his abnormal attachment to the mother, what 
 we call, his fixation upon the mother image. As we have 
 said before, every parent puts her stamp, her image on the 
 child. The child's first impulses of love are always directed 
 to the parent, that is, a little boy's first sweetheart is always 
 his own mother, her image is definitely imprinted upon his 
 mind, so that forever afterwards the child is always guided 
 by this image. The same relation exists between the girl 
 and her father. At the age of prepubescence the children 
 normally begin to tear themselves away from the parents ; a 
 little boy will no longer even like to be hugged and kissed 
 by his mother, he will feel that it is not quite right, that it is 
 terribly unmanly. He will begin to find other women with 
 whom he will fall in love. The history taken from men often 
 showed distinctly that at 8, 9, or 10 years of age they were 
 madly in love. But the only child does not learn to detach 
 his libido from the mother, always guarded, as he is by 
 maternal affection. Though he is constantly guided by it in 
 his selection, the child normally tears himself away from the 
 mother image. But in the case of the only child, where the 
 mother had the opportunity to imprint her image on the boy 
 for a much longer time and in a considerably stronger way, 
 the image of the mother becomes fixed so that in later life
 
 282 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 he is always controlled by it, he cannot trust any one but 
 his mother or some one resembling her. It is noteworthy 
 that the woman whom the child first takes as a substitute for 
 the mother is usually of about his mother's age. It is only 
 as he grows older that he begins to be more and more inter- 
 ested in younger women. It is a common observation that 
 the younger the man the older the woman that attracts him. 
 But he behaves very differently, when he enters his second 
 childhood ; it seems then the other way around, the older the 
 man, the younger the woman that attracts him. As age ad- 
 vances there seems to be a regression to the more or less 
 infantile, so that it is not at all uncommon to find many old 
 men seeking young girls. We see this condition in its ab- 
 normal form in cases of senile dementia where the old man 
 in dotage actually attempts flirtations with young girls be- 
 cause of his mental deterioration. In normal cases, the man 
 merely evinces a kindly and fatherly interest in the girl. 
 
 In transferring this early attachment from the mother to 
 other women, the child is very often a source of much 
 anguish to the parent. Many a mother sometimes has ex- 
 perienced a nervous breakdown when it became evident that 
 the son was tearing himself away from her. It is hard to 
 realize what struggles some women have even later when 
 their sons finally choose a mate. They never find a single 
 girl whom they approve of. We have here the reason 
 for the mother-in-law theme. This condition exists every- 
 where, even among savages, and it is due to this one crucial 
 fact, that the mother-in-law either loves her son to such an 
 extent that she does not want any other woman to take him 
 away from her and does not actually find a woman worthy 
 enough of her boy, or living through her daughter's life she 
 identifies herself with her and therefore tends to fall in love 
 with her daughter's lover. It thus happens sometimes, that 
 the daughter is actually jealous, and I have had many women
 
 THE ONLY CHILD 283 
 
 who have corroborated this from their own experience. Oc- 
 casionally the press will report the case of a man who courted 
 the daughter and married the mother, and vice versa. We 
 have here essentially the same image and it is easy enough to 
 transfer its influence from the one to the other. 
 
 The only child can do very little on his own initiative, but 
 consciously or unconsciously depends largely upon the 
 mother's influence. I remember once treating a patient, a 
 last child, 1 who had a domineering mother. It seemed that 
 he was never able to do anything without her. He came to 
 New York to find employment, but could not make up his 
 mind to accept a position, despite the fact that many splendid 
 opportunities were offered him. He would come to me 
 and we would weigh the situation pro and con. I saw no 
 other reason for his indecision and procrastination than his 
 inherent weakness to decide. Finally I discovered that his 
 mother was wont to bid him do something in this manner: 
 "Jack, if I tell you to do it, do it." One day he came to 
 me with the same problem and I decided to resort to that 
 magic formula. I said to him : "If I tell you to do it, do it." 
 And surely enough, he replied: "Alright, Doctor." 
 
 The only child rarely marries, and if he does, his wife is 
 not at all to be envied. As we pointed out, the average boy 
 in a home of four or five children, where the mother has 
 no time to gratify the child's ever-increasing emotional 
 cravings, fixes as he grows older from one woman to an- 
 other, seeking a substitute for the parent in the person of 
 a teacher, nurse, hairdresser, etc. He transfers his emotions 
 to every newcomer in the home. But the only child receives 
 so much attention and love from the parent at home that he 
 does not learn to direct his libido toward others, and as he 
 grows older, his libido remains more or less fixed upon the 
 
 1 We must remember that the last child presents the same problem 
 as the only child, particularly the last child who is removed from 
 the other children by about three or four years.
 
 284 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 parent. Occasionally nature asserts itself and a powerful 
 stream of libido wells forth: he is drawn to some woman 
 and may even go as far as becoming engaged to her. But 
 difficulties soon arise. It is not at all uncommon for an only 
 son to come to me on his wedding day imploring me to do 
 something to stay the marriage. On such an occasion one 
 man expressed to me the fear that perhaps he was suffering 
 from appendicitis, perhaps, he felt, he should be sent to the 
 hospital. I assured him that he had nothing of the sort, and 
 he continued to persuade me, "I really feel a pain, doctor, 
 maybe I have." I advised him not to marry the girl, I as- 
 sured him that he would not be rendering her anything in 
 the nature of a favor. But the family physician was terrified 
 at my advice and the mother politely informed me that I was 
 a vicious person. And so the poor fellow was led to the 
 ceremony like the proverbial lamb to be slaughtered. Now 
 divorce proceedings are going on. How much better would 
 it be to have stopped the fiasco on the wedding, what trouble 
 and mortification would have been saved. I have observed 
 also men of this type suddenly seized with all manner of 
 hysterical aches and pains when the time came for them to 
 keep the appointment that they had made with some young 
 lady : they are loathe to go. The average normal man is 
 delighted to go out and meet women, play cards, flirt, love, 
 and marry. But these folks are too weak. Only the other 
 day one of these men remarked to me: "If I would not have 
 it so nice at home, I would probably marry, but as it is I do 
 not feel like it." He is of the race of only children and his 
 mother guards him like the apple of her eye. That is the 
 very expression the fond parent used when telling me about 
 her "seven- footer" who is about 45 years old. When she 
 learned that I advised her boy to marry, she became terribly 
 alarmed and came to me at once and told me just what she 
 thought of me. She felt that although he was strong and
 
 THE ONLY CHILD 285 
 
 healthy now, he still needed mother's care, for as a boy, he 
 was delicate and weak and always had colds. 
 
 The only son generally continues to live in his own little 
 sphere, quietly and apparently well, but with the death of 
 the mother he often suffers a breakdown. I have reported 
 the case of a man, the last child, a favorite son, though not 
 an only son. He was really an only child, as there was a gap 
 of about ten years between him and the other children; he 
 was considered by all in the home to be the "kid" in the 
 family. He grew up to be a "nice" man, graduated from 
 college and became a lawyer. Meanwhile his mother was get- 
 ting older and older. She was about 67 years old, and her 
 chronic invalidism confined her to the house. One day it oc- 
 curred to the young man that it was wrong for him to go 
 downtown to the office, stay there all day and then go out so- 
 cially at night : he felt that he ought to be more with his old 
 mother. He decided to come home an hour earlier each day ; 
 soon he made it two hours and so he continued to leave the 
 office earlier and earlier until he finally resigned from his posi- 
 tion and stayed home all the time. The father was about 
 eighty and the son hated him with a terrible hatred. He used 
 to observe : "The only thing my old man does is torture my 
 mother." Finally he resigned from his clubs and the regi- 
 ment with which he used to go out drilling, and stayed at 
 home to take care of his dear mother entirely. Presently 
 he stopped shaving; he had no desire to leave the house; 
 he neglected his person. The mother and the other members 
 of the family protested against this, they felt there was 
 something wrong. The young man maintained that the 
 children were heartless to let the mother stay alone at home. 
 They offered to stay with her, but he refused, he felt that 
 his sister could not take the care of the poor woman that 
 he did. His fond hope was that the father would soon die 
 and he would be alone with his dear mother. He slept in
 
 286 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 a room between hers and the father's because for years he 
 was afraid that the latter might come in at night and disturb 
 her, so concerned was he over her welfare. Soon the father 
 died, and a few days later the mother. Her death precipi- 
 tated the son's complete breakdown. He would go to her 
 cemetery and remain there all day, he desired to commit 
 suicide on her grave. He came home and had delusions of 
 self -accusation. He charged himself with having shortened 
 his mother's life: he cited any number of instances when he 
 could have done things that would have saved her. He also 
 blamed himself for the father's death and was mortified at 
 his ill-treatment of him. In one word, he began to show 
 glaring symptoms of dementia praecox which he had for 
 years, but which no one, of course, recognized. Every one 
 thought that his behavior was just an expression of extreme 
 devotion. Such cases are not at all rare, though, of course, 
 they are not all as extreme. 
 
 It has always been a source of much interest to me to note 
 how many of the so-called confirmed bachelors marry after 
 some serious illness, after they have been operated, let us 
 say, for kidney trouble or appendicitis. And what is just 
 as interesting is to observe that it is no one less than the 
 nurse herself with whom the devoted son has fallen in love. 
 I confess, before I knew very much about the psychology of 
 the unconscious, I was a little surprised at these tricks of 
 amor. Now I realize that these men find again the mother 
 in the nurse, the woman who takes mother's untiring interest 
 in them, administers hot applications to their bellies, and 
 performs all manner of personal services for them. Of 
 course, they rationalize their attachment as an expression 
 of gratitude on their part, but fundamentally the affair 
 cannot be regarded as anything other than an unconscious 
 harping back to the mother's influence. 
 
 The only child may transfer very readily, — but very badly.
 
 THE ONLY CHILD 287 
 
 He quickly forms a strong attachment and just as quickly 
 
 a strong dislike. This form of reaction can be observed 
 
 even at an early age. I have here a letter that a father of 
 
 an only daughter sent me, showing the typical mode of 
 
 transference. 1 It was written by a very precocious girl of 
 
 11 to her father, who was out of town, after she had had 
 
 two conferences with me: 
 
 "A wise and all powerful man has been interviewed, etc. 
 
 At all times the soft pedal was in evidence and he gradually 
 
 reminded me of Socrates. He was highly pleased when I 
 
 informed him of my comparison. One more mortal has 
 
 been added to my following list of ideals : Lincoln, ideal 
 
 man ; Bonaparte, warrior ; Shakespeare, author ; Caruso, 
 
 singer ; Pavlowa, dancer ; Mrs. Vernon Castle, girl and big 
 
 looker ; Fred Stone, comedian ; Prof. Brill, Doctor." But 
 
 I regret to say that she was so utterly disillusioned in me 
 
 after her third interview, that she would have nothing 
 
 more to do with me. This is a typical example of quick 
 
 transference, first in the positive and then in the negative 
 
 direction. There was no more good reason for her strong 
 
 aversion than for her comparing me to Socrates. The point 
 
 merely was that at first I may have reminded her of her 
 
 father by the part I played and she at once identified me with 
 
 him. But on the second occasion, I could no longer fit in 
 
 with her image, and I was at once struck off from her list 
 
 of the great and elite. We see here a typical only child in 
 
 *The term transference is very often misused by so-called psycho- 
 analysts. They seem to think that a proper transference requires 
 the patient to fall in love with the physician. This notion causes 
 much harm and I have seen cases in which it has actually led to 
 scandal, to say nothing of the fact that it renders the whole psycho- 
 analytic treatment absurdly fruitless. Neither Freud nor his school 
 ever advocated such an idiotic idea. The transference mechanism 
 involves a giving and taking of hostile and affectionate emotions 
 alike; it does not mean exclusively one or the other. Every indi- 
 vidual's transference is always in terms of the sum total of his 
 present reactions to the environments. To understand, therefore, 
 the one, we must understand the other.
 
 288 . PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the literal sense of the word, she forms enormous likes to-day 
 and just as enormous dislikes to-morrow. 
 
 From what I have said we must not infer that every only 
 child is hopeless. If brought up properly he can turn out to 
 be a very desirable citizen and may very often develop into a 
 leader. 1 He has many desirable attributes which when used 
 in the proper direction place him in the foremost ranks 
 among men. It is instructive to note that what we pointed 
 out regarding the development of the crown-prince institu- 
 tion applies also to such rulers as Presidents of republics 
 who depend on the people for their election, or, in other 
 words, that Presidents of republics are still only sons, oldest 
 or favorites and though elected by the people have the same 
 characteristics as those oldest sons who developed the 
 crown-prince institution. This is actually borne out by facts. 
 Washington, Adams, Madison, Jackson, Grant, Hayes, 
 for instance, were the oldest sons ; Monroe was an only son, 
 and it is significant that we owe the Monroe Doctrine to 
 him; so were Van Buren, Buchanan (and he was a bach- 
 elor!), and Johnson. Lincoln was the second, but really 
 the only son ; Roosevelt also, as you know, was the only son. 
 Harrison, Tyler, Taylor were the third sons (and it is not 
 surprising that these gentlemen do not stand out very con- 
 spicuously). 
 
 The only child has played a conspicuous part in various 
 
 fields by reason of his aggressive qualities. It is noteworthy 
 
 that the first advertiser in the modern sense of the word, was 
 
 an only child. He was Kiselak by name, and was born in 
 
 Vienna. As he did not wish to be a merchant, he entered 
 
 1 What I say about the only "child holds true also of the oldest 
 child, for in view of the importance of the impressions received 
 during the first few years of life, an individual that has been the 
 only boy or girl in the family during that important period will 
 show a great many of the only child's prominent characteristics, 
 though he may not show the latter's typiaal reaction.
 
 THE ONLY CHILD 289 
 
 upon a literary career, but his earnings from that source 
 were so meager that he was compelled to live on the money 
 that his parents had left him when they died. One evening 
 while in the company of a group of young writers, some 
 of the men began to poke fun at his apparent lack of success 
 and fame in the literary world. He was deeply hurt and 
 right there and then made a wager with one of the men who 
 mocked him that within ten years his name would be famous 
 all over Europe; no specification was made as to how he 
 would do it. He was twenty-eight years old when he started 
 a tour through Europe to carry out his intentions. He 
 carried the simplest kind of paraphernalia, a knapsack and 
 two cans of paint, one of white and one of red. Whenever 
 he came to a mountain, he would climb up on its most 
 prominent part and there in huge letters paint his name in 
 either red or white paint as seemed most desirable under the 
 circumstances. For six years he continued to do this until 
 he suddenly died; the name of Kiselak became known to all 
 travelers. Everybody wondered who this man could be, he 
 began to be talked about far and wide. This is characteristic 
 of the only child, he does not give up what he has set his 
 mind to do. 
 
 I have investigated various activities in life to discover to 
 what extent the only or the oldest child predominates in 
 those activities. Among the great religious teachers, I find 
 that Confucius and Paul the Apostle were the first born, 
 Buddha was an only son, Brahm was the oldest child, 
 William Penn was a first born and his mother's favorite. 
 Cotton Mather was the first born in a family of ten. Martin 
 Luther was a favorite, though not an only child. Bunyon 
 was the oldest and favorite son, St. Francis was the first 
 born and his mother's favorite. Among men of science, 
 Kepler and Galileo were the oldest sons. Among educators 
 and teachers, Pestalozzi, Bacon, Froebel and Erasmus were
 
 290 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the youngest in the family, Rousseau was the second and 
 last child, but as his older brother ran away as a child and 
 was lost, the noted author of Emile was really an only child. 
 This is the briefest possible list, and is intended merely to be 
 suggestive. 
 
 You may wonder why so many of the world's greatest 
 teachers were the youngest children of the family. We 
 should bear in mind that the youngest child also occupies a 
 special position in the home. Because the oldest child is the 
 first one to instruct the younger children he becomes espe- 
 cially fitted by his environment to teach. The youngest child, 
 fathered and mothered, as he is constantly by the others, 
 has his shortcomings pointed out to him so repeatedly that 
 if he has any worth and virile qualities in him at all, he 
 invariably turns out to be a teacher just to show his brothers 
 and sisters that he can teach just as well as they. If they 
 are of the proper stuff and are not utterly squelched by the 
 others in the home, they turn out to be leaders themselves, 
 and strange to say, many take to teaching. 
 
 To give you a general idea of the more or less character- 
 istic early development of the only child, his relation to the 
 parent, his place in the home, his later problems and con- 
 flicts, I can do no better than to read to you a dream together 
 with its more or less fragmentary analysis given to me by 
 one of my patients, an only son, suffering of what I diag- 
 nosed as a mixed neurosis. He is afraid to be out alone, to 
 ride in subways and over bridges, etc. ; he has also some 
 obsessive thoughts of the compulsion neurotic type. I must 
 also add that he is married and that he entered into matri- 
 mony only because he was afraid and found a protector in 
 his wife. He would have remained single had he not found 
 a woman whom he could trust. His dream runs as follows : 
 
 "I dreamed of going on the way to the apartment where 
 I live. The sky then became very dark; a storm was ap-
 
 THE ONLY CHILD 291 
 
 proaching. There were many thunder sounds and some 
 lightning. The people were all standing and looking towards 
 the west, from which direction this peculiar storm seemed to 
 be coming. Gradually it began to rain and storm, and at 
 
 that time I was about at St., and then it occurred to 
 
 me that I had better go into my mother's apartment. I went 
 to the house but decided not to go in. Then I wanted to 
 go in, and so I kept on struggling and finally did not go in." 
 
 Here are some instructive facts that the analysis revealed : 
 "I slept with my mother until the age of six or seven. My 
 mother then had an illness of some duration. Then I slept 
 with my father until the age of 12." It is noteworthy that 
 in practically every case of this type the boy or girl slept 
 with the parents until a very late age. I am glad to say that 
 we do not find this practice in the average home, the child 
 does not sleep with his mother or father at the age of six 
 or seven. But it is usual in the cases of only children. Such 
 a practice is distinctly harmful to the normal sexual develop- 
 ment of the child, it interferes with his normal emotional 
 development. Sleeping with the parents involves contact 
 and thus produces a precociousness in the sex life ; the child's 
 emotions are abnormally stimulated. If we were savages 
 there would be no harm in having a child sleep with the 
 parents, because we would act as savages upon reaching 
 maturity. But as civilized beings we behave differently upon 
 reaching maturity; in other words, an individual may be 
 old enough to indulge in all kinds of sexual practices, but 
 he is not allowed or supposed to do so until he reaches a 
 certain age. 
 
 The patient then continued to relate how unusually at- 
 tached he was to his mother and grandmother when a boy 
 of five or six. "I recall being told by my mother that when 
 I went to school at the age of six, mother had to go with me 
 and that it was only after a few days of staying at the school
 
 292 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 that I could be induced to stay there alone. I cried and 
 raised some little rumpus." 
 
 When I asked the patient what games he played when he 
 was little, he informed me that he was fond of dolls up to 
 the age of seven or eight. He remembered in particular one 
 large doll which he dressed up like a little girl. This is 
 significant, for it is well known that many effeminate men 
 played with dolls when they were young children. Playing 
 with dolls is essentially a feminine game. I have studied the 
 question for a number of years and I feel that the only 
 reason why dolls are liked by little girls is because they 
 appeal to the feminine instinct, the desire for children. As 
 Victor Hugo puts it, "A woman's last doll is her first child." 
 A healthy boy will refuse to play with dolls; the normal 
 boy always gravitates to games of the aggressive type. This 
 is as it should be. Indeed, we should always encourage a 
 boy to engage in those games that help to develop qualities 
 of manhood. On the other hand, I have observed men who 
 were not effeminate though they had played with dolls when 
 they were children. These, however, showed the pernicious 
 effects of the practice in some other way. Thus I recall at 
 this moment the case of a big, strong fellow, an only son, 
 brought up by his mother and aunt, his father having died 
 when he was very young. I learned that the only type of 
 woman that attracted him was the woman with yellow hair, 
 of the doll type, and this despite the fact that his mother 
 was not of that type. Analysis showed, however, that as a 
 child he always played with dolls and had a particular attach- 
 ment to a big doll with whom he slept and fondled for years. 
 
 From the fragmentary analysis I have thus far given you 
 of the patient's case, you may readily see that the patient 
 was predisposed to his neurosis, first, by the fact that he was 
 an only child, and secondly, by the fact that his sex life was 
 stimulated at too early an age. He had to repress conse-
 
 THE ONLY CHILD 293 
 
 quently very much more than the normal boy later on in 
 life. As we have already learned, an unusual amount of 
 repressed libido manifests itself in anxiety and it is this 
 anxiety which is at the basis of his neurosis. In the dream 
 we see him struggling : he really wants to return to his 
 mother but finally decides not to. This is exactly his problem 
 in actual life. Fortunately he made a good selection, but his 
 wife is at the very most only a poor substitute to him for his 
 mother. If the latter were strong enough to help him he 
 never would have married the woman. He had to have 
 some one take the place of his poor old debilitated mother. 
 As a matter of fact, he is always seriously thinking whether 
 he should not give up his profession and stay home with 
 her until her death. In the dream he realizes his wish not 
 to return to his mother. This followed our discussion on the 
 subject, as a result of which the patient was beginning to 
 gain more and more insight into his condition. 
 
 The intrinsic problem of the only child, his fixation upon 
 the mother, has been noted in literature. I recall at this 
 present moment a little conversation in Bernard Shaw's 
 "Pygmalion" in which the author sums up the situation of 
 the only son most admirably. Prof. Higgins, an only son, 
 speaking with his mother : 
 
 "Higgins: I have picked up a girl. 
 
 "Mrs. H.: Does that mean that some girl has picked 
 you up? 
 
 "Higgins: Not at all, I do not mean a love affair. 
 
 "Mrs. H.: What a pity! 
 
 "Higgins: Why? 
 
 "Mrs. H.: Will you never fall in love with any one under 
 45 years ? When will you discover that there are some rather 
 nice looking young women about? 
 
 "Higgins : I cannot be bothered with young ones. My
 
 294 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 idea of a woman is some one as much like you as possible ; 
 some habits lie too deeply to be changed." 
 
 How well the author sums up the problem, it is absolutely 
 true to type. 
 
 Just a few words before closing on prophylaxis. Of 
 course, it would be best for the individual as well as the 
 race that there should be no only children. However, when 
 this cannot be avoided by virtue of ill health or death of one 
 of the parents the child need not necessarily become neurotic 
 and belong to any of the categories mentioned above. It all 
 depends upon its subsequent bringing up. 
 
 When we read the history of only children we find that 
 only those who have been brought up wrongly develop into 
 abnormal beings, those who are not pampered and coddled 
 have the same chances as other children. As classical ex- 
 amples we may mention Nero and Confucius, the former 
 was a spoiled only child, while the latter was a well-bred only 
 child. An only child should be made to associate with other 
 children who will now teach him that he is not the only child 
 in the world. This should begin at a very early age. I 
 have seen many "nervous and wild" only children who were 
 completely changed after a few weeks' attendance in a 
 kindergarten or public school. But what is still more im- 
 portant is that only children should not be gorged with 
 parental love. Parents should take care that such children 
 should not develop an exaggerated idea of their own per- 
 sonality and think that they are the center of the universe. 
 For individuals imbued with such paranoid ideas are bound 
 to come into conflict with their fellow men. 
 
 The problem is more complicated when we come to 
 prophylaxis in relation to psychosexuality and I regret that 
 I am unable to enter here into a long discussion. I shall 
 merely say that proper sex regulation does not necessarily 
 imply repression and extermination of all sex feelings, and
 
 THE ONLY CHILD 295 
 
 that the requisite for perfect manhood and womanhood are 
 all the impulses and desires that are normally common to 
 men and women. 
 
 In conclusion I wish to say that the only child is a morbid 
 product of our present social economic system. He is 
 usually an offspring of wealthy parents who, having been 
 themselves brought up in luxury and anxious that their 
 children should share their fate, refuse to have more than 
 one or two children. By their abnormal love they not only 
 unfit the child for life's battle but prevent him from develop- 
 ing into normal manhood, thus producing sexual perverts 
 and neurotics of all descriptions.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 FAIRY TALES AND ARTISTIC PRODUCTIONS 
 
 The difficulties of adjustment as seen in the only child, 
 which are mainly due to the fact that the individual cannot 
 live in conformity to the principle of reality too often produce 
 neuroses and psychoses. Whenever we study the life his- 
 tory of such a psychosis we find that the patient has been 
 fitted, as it were, by his environment for the abnormal part 
 he is to play. In brief, all cases amenable to examination 
 show that long before the psychosis developed he has, as it 
 were, been prepared for his delusions and hallucinations. 
 The only child living alone has to imagine himself playing 
 with a younger brother because he is in great need of human 
 companionship ; the last child being dominated and tyrannized 
 by parents and older brothers and sisters perforce has to 
 imagine himself a hero overcoming them all, — a Jack the 
 Giant Killer. Or the sensitive predisposed child whose 
 primitive impulses have not been properly adjusted must 
 dispose the feelings emanating from them somehow in the 
 form of fancies and dreams. Such processes of adjustment 
 have given rise to a literature widely known as fairy tales. 
 
 Having their origin in an attempt at adjustment through 
 the creation of an imaginary world after one's own heart, 
 so to say, fairy tales are invariably expressions of the wish 
 motive. The individual tries to supplement in the imagina- 
 tion what is denied him in reality. It makes no difference 
 where the fairy tale comes from, whether from Iceland or 
 India, it always shows the wish fulfillment tendency when 
 
 296
 
 FAIRY TALES 297 
 
 analyzed. Hearn's story of the "Nun in the Temple of 
 Armida" will serve as a typical example of how the wish 
 fancy motivates the fairy tale. 
 
 Oda is patiently waiting with her little boy for the return 
 of her husband, who was for a long time in the service of 
 his feudal lord. She is a very pious and devoted wife and 
 in her anxious expectation she performed many strange 
 ceremonial acts. She offered a miniature meal for her 
 husband such as was offered to the Gods, and if steam was 
 formed on the inside of the place which was covered, she 
 was pleased because that was a sign that he was alive. She 
 loved her little boy and occupied herself with him almost 
 constantly. She went on pilgrimages to Daheyam Moun- 
 tain with her little boy, where all were wont to go who were 
 anxiously awaiting their beloved relatives. But Anid, her 
 husband, died in a foreign land and shortly thereafter there 
 followed the death of the little boy. After going through 
 a very long period of depression she began to collect very 
 small toys ; she used to spread out little baby dresses on the 
 lawn and talk to them and fondle them smilingly. This 
 action brought on convulsive sobs. She then resorted to the 
 rite of conjuring up the spirits of the deceased and received 
 the following consoling message : 
 
 "Oh, mother, do not cry for my sake, it is not right to 
 cry over the dead. For their silent way leads over the 
 stream of tears and if mothers cry the flood rises high and 
 the soul cannot rest and wanders restlessly to and fro." 
 Since then she stopped crying but refused to marry and 
 showed a liking for little things. Everything seemed too big 
 for her. Her room, her chair, her bed were all too big for 
 her. She made a little baby house and tried to live in places 
 that were toylike. Her parents then advised her to become 
 a nun in a tiny little temple with the smallest altar and 
 Buddha images. She entered the small Temple of Armida
 
 298 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 and spent her time in weaving very small chairs which, 
 
 although too small for practical use, were bought by some 
 
 who knew of her history. Her greatest pleasure was in the 
 
 society of little children whom she would imitate in every 
 
 respect. When she died a tiny tombstone was placed over 
 
 her grave. 1 
 
 Here we can see that the mother identified herself with 
 
 her little boy, trying to realize in this way her abnormal wish. 
 
 We find this mechanism among primitive men, children, and 
 
 normal and abnormal people alike. We know, for instance, 
 
 how the savage will daub himself to resemble his god. The 
 
 child, because his greatest desire is to be big, walks on stilts 
 
 and dresses up like its elder. In our modern times we have 
 
 spiritualism. People resort to the spiritualist in order to 
 
 realize their wishes. It is a surprisingly easy matter to detect 
 
 the whole fraud when we bear in mind that the medium 
 
 relies entirely upon the suggestions of the audience. When 
 
 he opens the seance, for instance, with "I see a child, it is 
 
 looking for its mother," we may rest assured that there is 
 
 bound to be in the audience a brooding and sorrowful woman 
 
 who had lost her child and who will consequently react to 
 
 this with apparently marked emotions ; her reaction will be 
 
 such as to tell the medium that he is on the right track. Our 
 
 inspired friend now has a basis on which to proceed. His 
 
 messages are not from the departed, they are merely wishes, 
 
 which he has pieced together as best he could, from the 
 
 suggestions that he has received from the audience. In the 
 
 same way women wonder how the fortune teller could know 
 
 that they are in love : they do not realize that they consulted 
 
 him because of that very fact. In the final analysis, all such 
 
 interests on the part of men and women may be reduced to 
 
 the one fundamental fact, — that we always strive to realize 
 
 our wishes. 
 
 1 Cf . Riklin : Wunscherfullung und Symbolikin Marchen Denticke, 
 Wien, 1908.
 
 FAIRY TALES 299 
 
 The tear motive found in the story of the Nun of Armida 
 is seen in many other fairy tales. We find the following tale 
 in Ludwig Beechstein's Fairy Book: 
 
 Three days and nights a mother cried at the sick bed of 
 an only child, but it died. The mother was seized with 
 terrible pain. She ate nothing and drank nothing for three 
 more days, crying incessantly and calling for the child. Then 
 the door opened noiselessly and the child stood before her. 
 It was now a beautiful little angel and smiled at her ecstat- 
 ically. In its hand it carried a little pitcher which was almost 
 overflowing. The child spoke the following: "Oh dearest 
 mother, cry no longer for me. Behold your tears which 
 you shed for me are collected in this pitcher. Only one more 
 tear and it will overflow and I'll have no rest in my grave 
 and no peace in heaven. Please cry no more. I am an angel 
 and have angels to play with." We see here the wish motive 
 most admirably rationalized. The same theme is treated 
 with slight variation by the Grimm brothers. 
 
 To grasp their deeper significance many fairy tales must 
 be interpreted symbolically. Here is a typical example: 
 
 There was once a man who had three daughters. He 
 was going to the market and asked his daughters what he 
 should bring them home. The oldest daughter wanted a 
 golden spinning wheel, the second daughter wanted a golden 
 reel, and the youngest daughter, Oda, said, "Bring me that 
 which will run under your wagon on your return from 
 market." The father bought the two daughters the things 
 they desired. On his way home he suddenly beheld a snake 
 under the wagon. He caught it for his youngest daughter. 
 He threw it in front of the gate and left it there for Oda. 
 When she came out the snake began to talk to her, saying, 
 "Oda dear, may I not come into the house?" And Oda said, 
 "My father brought you to the door and now you wish to 
 come in ?" But she let the snake come in. When he entered
 
 300 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the house, he asked to go into her bedroom ; then when Oda 
 was getting into bed, he wished to be taken to bed. He then 
 became transformed into a young prince, who could be re- 
 deemed only in this manner. From what we have already 
 said about dream symbolism it is not hard to see the sig- 
 nificance of this story. The snake very clearly represents 
 the male elements, and we have here a simple sexual wish. 
 It is noteworthy that we encounter this particular symbolism 
 also in insanity. Thus one of my patients in a hospital 
 imagined that a snake lived within her body, and one day 
 she informed me that it was in her genital. We see here 
 how well the symbolism is carried out. 
 
 Fairy tales representing essentially an abnormal gratifica- 
 tion of the individual's inner strivings and wishes, it is not 
 at all surprising to find that they are invariably products of 
 shut-in, seclusive personalities, persons who never came in 
 normal contact with other people, and who generally led an 
 abnormal existence. Such individuals resorted to the fairy 
 tale as a mode of emotional gratification. Thus Andersen 
 did not see a single child up to the age of eleven or twelve. 
 In fact, when he was placed in contact with children he 
 could not get along with them. He confessed himself that 
 he used to spin phantom children in his brain with whom he 
 constantly played. This is not surprising, for if you take a 
 child who has any desire at all to associate with others and 
 keep him all to himself, he will invariably create some 
 imaginative companion. Thus I have in mind the case of 
 a young girl who continued to fancy that she had a little 
 companion ; she would buy various toys for it, save Christ- 
 mas presents for it, and insist that mother buy an extra ticket 
 for it when she was taken to the theater. 
 
 It is because this preformed mechanism of fancying exerts 
 the most pernicious influence in the individual's later life, 
 that I am so strongly opposed to fairy tales. Take the case
 
 FAIRY TALES 301 
 
 of a patient who broke down when the woman he was about 
 to marry was shot. He was continually obsessed with 
 fancies about her. He would find himself, for instance, 
 unconsciously opening the door of his car to let her in, 
 adding, "Hurry, dear, we have to get there in time." For 
 many hours of the day he would actually engage in imaginary 
 conversations with the woman whom he had lost. It is' 
 significant that analysis revealed that the man formed in 
 early childhood a strong habit of fancying. Having learned 
 in childhood to satisfy himself with phantoms, he now found 
 it impossible to resign himself to the fact that she was dead, 
 and lived with her in his imagination. There is no doubt at 
 all that such a tendency to fancy in early childhood is detri- 
 mental to the individual's psychic development, for we cannot 
 cope with an inexorably real world if we live in fancies. 
 
 There are quite a number of interesting fancies of grown- 
 ups that I could cite to you, that may all be traced to the 
 influence of an early strong tendency to fancy. I shall read 
 a few: 
 
 The scene of this story was laid in the suburbs of one of 
 the principal cities of the United States where families of 
 means and education reside. E. S., who lived here, was a 
 governess in the family of Mrs. L., and had such a pleasing 
 personality that she attracted in rather an unusual way the 
 friends of her employer. She was engaged to a rich English- 
 man who owned an estate. She would read extracts from 
 his letters to her friends, and announced that he was coming 
 to this country. Although Mrs. L. invited him to dine with 
 her there was always the excuse of a previous plan preventing 
 the visit. E. S. would describe to her employer the pleasures 
 she enjoyed with him, and how he would take her to the 
 train and they would talk until it came in. At last the date 
 was set for her marriage to take place at the home of Mrs. L. 
 Owing to the unusual romantic conditions, great interest was
 
 302 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 evinced by her friends, who all helped with the making of 
 her trousseau. Mrs. L.'s little daughter was to accompany 
 her to Europe for a short visit. A short time before the 
 wedding day word came from Mr. C. that certain conditions 
 had arisen to prevent him from coming over, but he had 
 made proper arrangements for the marriage to take place 
 in his own home. Although this came as a great blow to 
 the governess and her friends the plans were changed and 
 accommodations secured on the steamer for the governess, 
 child and rector. They went into the city to spend the night 
 in a hotel because the steamer sailed in the morning. It was 
 in the morning that she confessed that it was a fascinating 
 story that she had woven in her brain. Her relatives were 
 sent for and she was sent to a sanitarium. 
 
 There was a somewhat similar case reported in the news- 
 papers some years ago of a woman who continued with her 
 fancies to the supposed wedding day, when she received a 
 telegram that the fiance met with an accident in Chicago. 
 She went to Chicago, bought a corpse and brought the dead 
 body of her imaginary lover : it was the only way in which 
 she could terminate the fancy. 
 
 I have known also personally the case of a young lady 
 who would become seriously depressed and ill every time she 
 heard of an engagement or some love-affair among the girls 
 of her acquaintance. On a number of occasions she would 
 actually go to the length of writing to the prospective groom 
 informing him as matters of fact what she merely spun in 
 her imagination. She would tell the young man, for instance, 
 that his fiancee had been living with another man for such 
 and such a time ; she would give details such as the city 
 in which the woman lived and the name under which she 
 went. Of course she caused a good deal of mischief. In 
 one such case, a young lady estranged fifteen couples, in- 
 cluding her own sister. She always managed to secure data
 
 FAIRY TALES 303 
 
 which could be corroborated. Of course, when a man is 
 jealous all he needs is the slightest suspicion to build up a 
 powerful case. 
 
 Another pernicious result of fairy stories is that they lay 
 the foundation for compulsive symptoms of obsessions. As 
 you know, everything in fairy stories is done by threes, and 
 I have seen many people who carried along this superstition 
 with them through their lives. Thus my attention has re- 
 cently been drawn to the case of a mine inspector who began 
 to talk of things in multiples of three. He would get out 
 600 tons a day, 300 mine cars and 12 railroad cars; one day 
 he told the shipping clerk that the mine would get out 900 
 tons, whereas it only put out the usual 500 tons. He applied, 
 for instance, for three more motors and thirty new trans- 
 portation men, he insisted that the mine was good for 600 
 mine cars a day and that in three weeks it would be the best 
 mine in the state. This compulsive thinking in threes was 
 carried over also to his home life. When his wife became 
 pregnant, for example, he was sure she would have three 
 children. Analysis showed definitely that the obsession went 
 back directly to the influence of fairy tales. 
 
 I have reported the following dream of a woman: "She 
 saw three long neck bottles. One was almost broken to 
 pieces, the second cracked and the third contained sparkling 
 champagne." The dreamer was a widow of 42 years of age, 
 who informed me that as far back as she remembers all her 
 important affairs in life went by threes. Before her mar- 
 riage she acted toward her suitors in the same way: she 
 never expected very much of the first, regarded with greater 
 favor the second, and expected to marry the third. Her 
 husband had to propose three times before she would marry 
 him. If she accidentally broke a dish, for instance, she had 
 no rest until she broke two more, so that she accordingly 
 always had on hand some discarded bottles which served that
 
 30 4 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 purpose. In the light of her obsession the significance of 
 the dream is evident. The three long necked bottles are 
 symbolic of men. Her dead husband is represented by the 
 broken bottle, the man who was her lover for years after her 
 husband's death is represented by the cracked bottle, while 
 the third one containing sparkling champagne is meant to 
 represent the man who was paying her attention at the time 
 of the dream. The champagne in the bottle is doubly de- 
 termined; it symbolizes the quality of the man and is an 
 allusion to alcoholism to which they were both addicted. 
 Analysis revealed that this number-three ceremonial was 
 determined by the fairy stories she used to hear and read 
 since childhood, especially the following one which she 
 consciously took as a model. It is the story of a princess 
 whom her father had placed in a castle on top of a steep 
 glass mountain. The knight who succeeded in reaching the 
 top on his horse was to receive her in marriage. The young- 
 est of three brothers finally reached the top of the mountain 
 in the third attempt and married the princess. 
 
 Fairy tales are also very harmful to the normal psychic 
 development because they are primitive and archaic modes 
 of expression ; and catering as they do, to the primitive im- 
 pulse, they encourage primitive modes of thought and action 
 in the individual. Upon analysis we find that they all prac- 
 tically fall into the categories that we find when we reduce 
 sex to its various components or partial impulses. I have 
 drawn your attention already to the components of sadism 
 and masochism; there are also other components, such as 
 the partial impulse to look, "sexual curiosity," as it is com- 
 monly designated, and the partial impulse to touch, both of 
 which components we noted in discussing the tendency wit. 
 Fairy tales are based upon these partial components, par- 
 ticularly upon the sadistic and masochistic impulses. They 
 present a state of the most primitive type : the individual
 
 FAIRY TALES 305 
 
 either kills or is killed, he actually takes delight in producing 
 horrors. They thus have the most pernicious influence upon 
 the child, for they unfit him for reality by feeding his imagi- 
 nation on modes of reaction that are distinctly out of har- 
 mony with civilization. 
 
 Mr. N.'s case, which I have reported, may help you to see 
 to what a surprising degree the individual may be influenced 
 by fairy stories. The patient was considered most peculiar : 
 he often carried a revolver with him, he yearned for those 
 times when everybody carried the dirk and dagger and 
 could kill when offended. He was fascinated by wild 
 animals, especially the tiger who excited him to a marked 
 degree. He spent much time in the menagerie in front of 
 the tiger's cage, and when unobserved by the keeper, he 
 would tease the animal in order to see him jump and hear 
 him roar. ... A fancy which often recurred to him was 
 the following : "I am annoyed and angered by some one to 
 such an extent that I run wild and bite everybody that comes 
 in my way, until I bite my way into some person's body!" 
 
 Very soon after entering into the patient's psychic de- 
 velopment I noticed that his symptoms were largely deter- 
 mined by fairy stories, fables, and myths. Thus, his sadism 
 and other symptoms unmistakably showed an archaic setting. 
 The associations to almost all his dreams showed how all his 
 inner environments corresponded more to a world as de- 
 scribed by Andersen, Grimm, Lang and others than to our 
 present times. The following dream fragment with its as- 
 sociations will show this : 
 
 "On Fifth Ave. with a crowd of people looking at a tiger. 
 Whenever the animal comes my way I fly up to the roof 
 of a neighboring house." Associations: Flying recalled that 
 as a child he often entertained many wishes to fly above the 
 clouds, among the stars and planets. This recalled his 
 insatiable interest in astronomy at the age of seven to eight
 
 3 o6 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 years. At about the same period or even earlier he was 
 keenly interested in trees ; he was very eager to know where 
 the sap came from. The association then took him back to 
 a still earlier period of his life when he was interested in the 
 bodily functions and in childbirth. After he had been told 
 that children grew in the mother, he decided that they must 
 come out like a passage of the bowels. This caused him to 
 take special interest in the openings of the body, such as the 
 mouth, nose and anus. The interest in mysterious openings 
 was later projected to the outer world, so that he was strongly 
 attracted to caves. This unusual interest was facilitated 
 by many fairy stories, especially the ones concerning the 
 twelve princes who were called, One, Two, Three, Four, etc., 
 to Twelve, who went down to the bowels of the earth and 
 then became rabbits and burrowed their way up. From very 
 early childhood the patient imagined himself flying and 
 beheading monsters above the clouds, or penetrating to the 
 center of the earth in the form of some wicked magician, all 
 the time passing through the most harrowing scenes. By a 
 process of condensation he fused ancient characters and 
 episodes with persons and actions of reality, but all his 
 fancies usually began with some god or demon-like myth 
 and gradually descended to human beings. 
 
 As I went deeper and deeper into the analysis I became 
 more and more impressed with the fact that all his associa- 
 tions were explained by some fairy tale or myth. Thus the 
 flying was not only determined by flying fancies but recalled 
 also the story of Perseus, who undertook an expedition 
 against the Islands of the Gorgons. 
 
 There is no denying that this is a unique case; but, al- 
 though I have not seen another psychoneurotic with such a 
 pronounced archaic make-up, I have, nevertheless, observed 
 many persons who showed the same mechanisms in a lesser 
 degree. I have reported numerous cases that very clearly
 
 FAIRY TALES 307 
 
 show the direct harmful effects of sadistic and masochistic 
 reading material in childhood. Wanke justly asks: "Of 
 what benefit is it for the child to read fairy stories where 
 there is so much about murder and killing, and where human 
 life is treated in the most careless manner as if it amounted 
 to nothing? What does the child gain by reading about 
 criminal acts which bring no serious consequences on the 
 person perpetrating them?" 
 
 Moreover, even those individuals who do not continue 
 with the primitive impulses as far as sex is concerned, who 
 show no algolagnia, remain bad dreamers all their life time, 
 believing in the unreality of life, unable to appreciate the 
 real value of hard work and persistent effort. Having been 
 imbued in childhood with the omnipotence of the fairy book 
 heroes, they wish to be like them, and later refuse, or find it 
 difficult, to become plain citizens struggling for existence. 
 Such individuals are constantly wishing for the unattainable 
 that could only be gotten through some of the charms of 
 fairyland, such as magic boots, invisible caps, Aladdin's 
 Lamp, and so on. It is, therefore, no wonder that such 
 persons are unhappy as adults and think themselves out of 
 place among ordinary mortals. 
 
 That such an attitude of detachment from the actual facts 
 of life is in conflict with the requirements of life and militates 
 against success is not hard to see. No man has ever accom- 
 plished anything in life who was not a man of action. This 
 holds true of all fields of endeavor, even of art and literature. 
 Unless the artist or poet is no mere dreamer, he can hope 
 to produce very little. Marshal Foch in his "Strategy of 
 the War" sums up the situation very well when he says, 
 "You can understand that when a man of ordinary capacity 
 concentrates all his thoughts and studies upon a single object, 
 and labors unceasingly to accomplish it, he stands a chance 
 for success. Certain conditions are essential in order to be
 
 3 o8 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 a force in the world. A man must be objective and not 
 subjective. A man of action must not waste time in dreams. 
 Only facts count; you must stick to facts." And so every 
 man who has made his mark in the world has had to learn 
 to cope with facts, to meet reality face to face. The sooner, 
 therefore, our boys and girls are freed from the influence of 
 fairy tales the better. As for the fear expressed by some 
 people that abolishing fairy tales will stifle and impoverish 
 the imagination, let us remember that there is plenty of 
 material for the imagination in nature and life with which 
 the child can actually come in contact and from which he 
 can derive wholesome pleasure and instruction at the same 
 time. 
 
 From what we have seen of fairy tales we may say that 
 they represent essentially distorted fancies emanating from 
 archaic modes of thinking. The child with its infantile 
 wishes and desires runs riot, as it were, in the realm of 
 reality. Because it has not as yet learned to value the facts 
 of time, space, and mortality, it operates with invisible caps, 
 magic horses and other phantastic creations. As the indi- 
 vidual grows older, however, reality becomes more burden- 
 some and forces him to repress those archaic mechanisms. 
 He then realizes that only through reality can he attain his 
 wishes and desires, and sublimates those primitive impulses 
 through the various forms of occupations which 
 pro- we shall discuss later. Here, I merely wish to 
 
 touch more or less briefly upon a form of sublima- 
 tion as found in the so-called artistic productions. 
 
 Every child is an artist in the making. When our little 
 girl drew the picture of the little cart when she found she 
 could not actually possess the desired toy, she made her first 
 debut into the artistic world. In this simple illustration we 
 see at once the purpose that art fulfills : by its means one is
 
 FAIRY TALES 309 
 
 able to realize his inner strivings and desires. Similarly, 
 when a premature thawing of the snow prevents a little girl 
 from trying out her new sled, thus depriving her of her 
 keenly expected pleasure, she produces a picture of children 
 coasting and frolicking on the new fallen snow, which is 
 declared by artists to be a fine artistic production. The draw- 
 ing represented the desired condition and thus fulfilled the 
 little girl's wish. Similarly, we may say that Pygmalion was 
 in love with Galatea long before he fashioned her out of 
 ivory and that it was the impulse to possess Galatea that 
 caused the talented Pygmalion to chisel her out of ivory. 
 The wish is father to the artistic production, and we may 
 say that every artist is, as it were, a Pygmalion. In brief, 
 the artistic production, like the dream and the symptom is 
 a wish fulfillment emanating from unconscious sources. By 
 virtue of his talent the artist can embody on canvas, or in 
 relief or in sound those unattainable urgings which the 
 average individual experiences also but is able to express 
 only through the medium of dreams, day-dreams, fancies 
 and lies. It is well known also that what we would consider 
 impossibilities verging on the infantile or on insanity have 
 been put into operation by individuals who were able to 
 do so. For example, Nero's Golden Statue is an attempt 
 at his personal deification, and it is significant that Alexander 
 the Great was seriously thinking of making a statue of his 
 own person out of the whole of Mount Athos. 
 
 As we tried to point out on another occasion, the difference 
 between the artistic production and the other modes of wish 
 fulfillment such as dreams, symptoms, lies, etc., may be said 
 to lie in the fact that the latter are purely personal expres- 
 sions having no interest whatsoever for the outside world, 
 whereas the artistic production has a distinct social character 
 and offers a source of pleasure and gratification to artist and 
 audience alike. The symptom or dream is a distinct personal
 
 310 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 outlet, but through the artistic production the audience be- 
 comes identified with the artist, as it were, and partakes of 
 the original source of gratification. 
 
 Our conception of the artistic production as an expression 
 of inner strivings and wishes is not altogether new, for we 
 find it expressed in one form or another in ancient and 
 modern literature alike. Thus, we at once think of Aristotle's 
 famous theory of poetry and drama as a form of catharsis. 
 In modern times, we have a noted representative of this same 
 view in Goethe, who, as Pater says, "escaped from the stress 
 of sentiments too strong for him, by making a book about 
 them." The great poet's "Werthers Leiden" illustrates the 
 point. 
 
 It is significant that even individuals who show no artistic 
 talent in daily life suddenly display remarkable ability in 
 such directions when they become insane. I have in my 
 possession a remarkable collection of artistic creations in 
 painting, sculpture and belles-lettres produced by individuals 
 who were never known to possess any artistic talent and who, 
 as far as I could investigate, never made any attempt to 
 express themselves artistically. Thus I can mention a 
 grocer who, in his insanity, wrote erotic poetry of consid- 
 erable merit, and a cook who, in the same condition, produced 
 embroideries which a number of artists, upon careful exami- 
 nation, pronounced as excellent productions of the Byzantine 
 period. To be sure, a great many of the insane productions 
 seem meaningless and phantastic on superficial examination, 
 but to one acquainted with the patient's history, they are 
 full of meaning and significance. The same holds true of 
 the best masterpieces: to appreciate them fully it is often 
 necessary to have a knowledge of the artist's inner conflicts 
 and problems. In this respect, psychoanalytic study is par- 
 ticularly helpful, for it reveals to us the hidden sources of 
 the artist's influence. Sufficient investigation has been done,
 
 FAIRY TALES 311 
 
 for instance, to enable us to say that Leonardo da Vinci's 
 characteristic smile which one observes not only in the Mona 
 Liza, but also in his Saint Ann, Saint Mary and John the 
 Baptist, is in all probability a vague reminiscence of his 
 mother's smile. In his interesting little book, on Leonardo 
 da Vinci, Prof. Freud has thrown much light on the great 
 artist's inner life and problems and those of you who are 
 interested in the relation the great painter's work bears to 
 his mother's influence, would do well to read it. This inti- 
 mate relationship that we observe in this particular case 
 between the artist's life and work is seen also in sculpture 
 and belles-lettres. Some striking examples of this are "David 
 Copperfield," which is a picture of Dickens' own life, 
 Goethe's "Werthers Leiden," which describes some of the 
 emotional difficulties experienced by the young author him- 
 self, etc. 
 
 But the difference between the insane and the sane pro- 
 duction lies in the fact that most of the insane productions 
 are expressions of desires which are distinctly egocentric. 
 It is for that reason that the average person sees very little 
 meaning in them. He is unable to put himself in rapport 
 with them, as it were. On the other hand, when we look 
 at a masterpiece made by an artist, we experience a definite 
 feeling of esthetic pleasure. There is something familiar 
 in the piece of sculpture, or painting or literary work which 
 touches our own experiences. It seems that every great work 
 of art has a universal appeal, and that is why perhaps the 
 great masters, like Shakespeare, have no limited audience, 
 but are enjoyed to a greater or less degree, depending on 
 the individual, by all classes of people. In other words, we 
 may say that the insane production is usually autoerotic, it is 
 of a self-sufficient, self-satisfying, or infantile character, 
 while the artistic production belongs mostly to object libido.
 
 3 i2 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 The artist projects into the outer world certain feelings and 
 emotions which deal with object-love. 
 
 It is on this basis of autoerotism and object libido that we 
 may explain why most people see nothing artistic in so-called 
 modern art. For some reason or other, the latter productions 
 belong to autoeroticism. That is why they seem to most 
 people to be nothing short of insane productions, and as a 
 matter of fact it is often impossible to distinguish one from 
 the other. There is no doubt that if we were to compare 
 side by side some characteristic poem of a representative 
 lltra-modern poet with the verse of some insane patient, 
 we would at once be struck by the marked degree of sim- 
 ilarity between them. It is thus only by seeing the catalogue 
 that we can know that this particular ultra-modern picture 
 represents a nude descending the staircase, or this one New 
 York, or another a Spanish village. No stretch of the 
 imagination could reveal to one what the artist actually meant 
 to express. Information obtained from the artist himself 
 fully corroborates this view. As one of their spokesmen 
 said, he did not care whether his picture meant anything 
 to the spectator, it represented a source of gratification to 
 him and that was all that he was trying to attain. In other 
 words, the work was the expression of an artist, but not an 
 artistic expression in the strict sense. 
 
 We may thus lay it down as a general principle that all 
 expressions, whether normal or abnormal, as symptoms, 
 dreams, witticisms, fairy tales and artistic productions, may 
 be classified as infantile or adult, or as autoerotic or object 
 libido. Inherently, there is very little difference as far as 
 the individual is concerned, but conceived socially, we may 
 say that only those productions that have meaning and affect 
 to others besides the artist or producer himself may be con- 
 sidered normal.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 
 
 In the previous chapter I tried to make clear to you that 
 the reason why I object to certain types of fairy tales is 
 because fairy tales are offshoots of archaic thinking originat- 
 ing in antiquity, and because they are products of uncon- 
 scious wishes symbolically representing those primitive im- 
 pulses which the cultured being must learn to repress and 
 sublimate in order to fit himself for modern life. 1 Progres- 
 sive civilization depends on the harnessing and controlling of 
 the forces of nature as well as the forces of the individual, 
 and in directing these forces into useful channels. A fairy 
 tale, or a story that stimulates any of the partial impulses 
 or components of sex in children, may impede or arrest the 
 normal control of the individual's energy. Sooner or later 
 every normal human being must give up many of his natural 
 prerogatives and become part of the society he lives in. He 
 must renounce many of his individual desires and must exert 
 continuous effort for the common weal. That is, every in- 
 dividual must contribute something to the society he lives 
 in by adding something useful to it. We may designate such 
 contributions as work. 
 
 In the progressive development of culture this mode of 
 activity became more and more complex. At first there were 
 almost as many vocations a? men, but as time went on it 
 was found necessary that many persons perform the same 
 
 1 Brill : "Psychoanalysis, Its Theories and Applications," p. 293, W. 
 B. Saunders, Philadelphia. 
 
 313
 
 3H PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 kind of work. Instead of one tailor or doctor or musician 
 there had to be many tailors, many doctors, and many mu- 
 sicians. In other words, every individual has been allowed 
 by society to live through some of the pleasure principles, 
 but he has been forced to adapt himself to the principles of 
 reality. From our psychoanalytic knowledge we recognize 
 this process as sublimation. Every activity or vocation not 
 directed to sex in the broadest sense, no matter under what 
 guise, is a form of sublimation. 
 
 Now, is the form of sublimation followed by the individual 
 a matter of accident; in other words, is the selection of 
 vocation a matter of chance, or is it governed by definite 
 laws? The average person seems to consider the selection 
 of a vocation accidental or at least something that is quite 
 impersonal. He usually assumes that given certain qualifi- 
 cations, physical or mental, or both, a person could undertake 
 any kind of work or vocation. This view is evidently held 
 by parents who usually think they are best qualified to select 
 their children's vocation, and by professional vocational 
 guides who have reduced it all to a sort of mathematical 
 formula. They examine the person, discover some of his 
 attributes, and then feel presumptuous enough to tell him 
 what he is fitted for. Such procedure may be good enough 
 for defective persons whose power of sublimation is poor in 
 any case and whom a certain amount of suggestion can in- 
 fluence at least for a time. But does a normal person need 
 such advice and does such advice help him? Investigation 
 shows that the normal individual needs no advice or sug- 
 gestion in the selection of a vocation, he usually senses best 
 what activity to follow, and, what is more, he is invariably 
 harmed if advice is thrust upon him by a person of authority. 
 For it is known that all our actions are psychically deter- 
 mined by unconscious motives, that there is no psychic ac- 
 tivity which does not follow definite paths formed in the
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 315 
 
 individual since his childhood, and as work or profession is 
 nothing but a sublimating process in the service of hunger 
 and love we may assume that it also must be guided by the 
 individual's unconscious motives. Investigation has con- 
 vinced me of the truth of these assumptions. 
 
 When we ask a person why he follows a certain vocation 
 he usually answers that he does not know, that he just 
 drifted into it accidentally. Occasionally he answers that 
 his grandfather and his father performed the same line of 
 work and that he followed it. On applying the psycho- 
 analytic method, however, one usually finds some hidden 
 reasons for the particular activity. For years I had investi- 
 gated in this manner among patients, friends and strangers, 
 and though my findings are not complete I feel that I can 
 furnish a preliminary report. 
 
 The motives which actuate one to take up a certain voca- 
 tion vary with the person, that is, every vocation is indi- 
 vidually determined. My first investigation naturally began 
 with physicians. I asked of my confreres why they took up 
 the practice of medicine as a vocation and from the many 
 answers obtained I shall mention some. 
 
 Dr. W. stated that since his early childhood he had been 
 surrounded with doctors who were endeavoring to cure him 
 of a paralyzed limb, the effects of infantile paralysis, and as 
 they could not help him he decided to become a physician 
 and cure himself. 
 
 Dr. A. recalled that as a child he suffered from boils or 
 carbuncles and was taken to the doctor by his father. The 
 doctor was very brutal to him, and very inconsiderate and 
 almost insulting to his poor father. As a child he could 
 not understand his father's humility in the presence of the 
 brutal doctor, as his father's behavior was quite different in 
 his own home. This impression remained permanently fixed 
 on his mind. Whenever he was punished by his father he
 
 316 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 thought of the doctor before whom his father trembled, and 
 as a small boy he secretly wished he were a doctor. When 
 he became of age he realized his wish. 
 
 Dr. B. had no idea why he chose medicine as his profes- 
 sion, but finally recalled a scene from his early childhood. 
 He overheard a conversation between his mother and an- 
 other woman ; the latter looking at him asked his mother the 
 month of his birth, and when told that it was the month of 
 October she dryly remarked, "Poor boy, he will be either a 
 doctor, a butcher, or a murderer. He will have to shed 
 blood." As he did not care to adopt the last two vocations, 
 he became a physician. 
 
 Dr. C. told me that as a boy he lived near a slaughter 
 house, and often witnessed the killing and skinning of 
 animals, which greatly fascinated him. Since the age of 
 eight years he had not seen the slaughter house, and these 
 scenes entirely vanished from his mind, but when at the age 
 of sixteen the teacher of physiology demonstrated the circu- 
 lation of the blood in the frog he became very interested and 
 decided to study medicine. 
 
 Dr. D. was the son of a horse dealer who was also inter- 
 ested in veterinary surgery. His father urged him to become 
 a veterinary surgeon, which he set out to do, but changed 
 later to human beings. 
 
 Dr. E. was the son of a butcher whose ambition it was 
 that the son should follow his vocation. The latter, however, 
 insisted upon studying medicine and became a learned 
 anatomist. 
 
 In all these cases the sado-masochistic components were 
 first accentuated — in Dr. W. through his own suffering, and 
 in the others through early impressions — and later sublimated 
 in the profession. 
 
 The woman who associated the doctor (surgeon) with the 
 butcher and murderer was not so far from the mark. All
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 317 
 
 these activities are based on the sado-masochistic components, 
 it is only a question of adjustment. The surgeon and the 
 butcher have both conquered their sadistic impulses and 
 sublimate the same for useful purposes. The former repre- 
 senting a higher state of mental evolution becomes a direct 
 savior of human beings, while the latter, not so much en- 
 dowed mentally or perhaps having lacked the opportunities 
 for further mental development, still helps mankind by 
 butchering the animals which furnish its meat supply. 
 
 The professions of prize fighters, wrestlers, bull-fighters, 
 warriors, and mighty hunters are direct descendants of pure 
 sadism, and the need for the sadistic outlet is well shown by 
 the popularity of these vocations. Those who witness a prize 
 fight soon observe that the whole audience, and particularly 
 the votaries of the manly art, actually participate in the fight. 
 One of my patients told me that whenever he goes to a prize 
 fight he has to sit apart from every one, for when the prize 
 fighter, who is his favorite, strikes he has to imitate him. 
 He got himself into trouble many a time for hitting his 
 neighbors, he simply could not control himself, and to avoid 
 this he has to sit away from the other spectators. Others 
 do not actually strike their neighbors but they shout, yell, 
 and mimic the actors; in other words, they identify them- 
 selves with the fighter and in this way give vent to their 
 own sadistic feelings. 
 
 Some of the mechanisms are quite different, thus I know 
 three physicians who selected this profession because as 
 children they were jealous of the family doctor, who, they 
 imagined, stood in greater favor with their mothers than 
 their own fathers. Quite a number of the sons of my lady 
 patients whom I treated successfully have announced their 
 intention to study medicine and take up my specialty. There 
 is a tendency on the part of the sons to rival their fathers or 
 any other man whom their mother admires. The last
 
 3 i8 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 mechanism is also observed in other vocations. I know two 
 sons who became real estate agents in order to outdo the 
 man with whom their mother was in love. 
 
 The profession of law is often taken up as a reaction to 
 a dishonest act committed in childhood or early boyhood by 
 oneself, by parents, or by some immediate member of the 
 family, as brother or sister. Such persons are usually 
 scrupulously honest lawyers and judges, as unconsciously 
 they always feel that they are suspected and that they have 
 something to atone for. Quite often it is an unconscious 
 effort to obtain justice for oneself as a result of an injustice 
 experienced in childhood. 
 
 Mr. C, a very prominent jurist, had no idea why he took 
 up the study of law, but examination revealed the following 
 facts: He was brought up in a religious New England at- 
 mosphere. His mother was rather nervous, and kept her 
 husband and children in a very repressive state. The May- 
 flower spirit hovered over everything. She particularly 
 objected to smoking, and for years quarreled with her hus- 
 band about it, until he was forced to give up this luxury. 
 Her two boys were constantly subjected to all sorts of re- 
 strictions. One day, while waiting with other children in 
 the dressing room of a dancing school, they noticed a burning 
 cigarette left by the dancing master. The older brother, 
 noticing the burning cigarette, which stood for one of the 
 strongest taboos in his home, conceived the temptation to 
 violate it, and not having the courage to do it himself, he 
 turned to his younger brother and said, "Charles, I dare 
 you to take a puff from the cigarette." "I will take one if 
 you will," answered Charles, and on being assured that the 
 older brother would follow him in this transgression, he 
 bravely inserted the cigarette into his mouth and took the 
 puff. His older brother thereupon lost his courage and re- 
 fused to follow suit. And what was more, in order to atone
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 319 
 
 for his evil thought, he told his parents of what Charles 
 was guilty. One can hardly picture the fear, remorse, morti- 
 fication, and last, but not least, the sense of injustice ex- 
 perienced by the little boy when he was denounced by his 
 parents. The mother was terrified at the son's crime, and 
 called him to account for it. Charles experienced a deuble 
 feeling; to confess would be facing his mother's terrible 
 wrath, and to lie would be facing the wrath of heaven. He 
 chose the latter and stoutly denied his guilt. To settle the 
 matter the parents asked him whether he would take an oath 
 on the Bible that he did not commit the crime. Charles 
 hesitated just a few seconds and then stood ready to take 
 the oath. It seems that the parents suspected that he was 
 guilty, or they feared to use the holy Bible in vain, so that 
 instead of bringing in the holy book they brought in the 
 Bible stories, upon which Charles swore that he did not take 
 the puff. The parents probably soon forgot the episode, but 
 Charles retained an everlasting impression of it. For a long 
 time he felt like a person guilty of an enormous crime against 
 God and his parents, and constantly anticipated some terrible 
 retribution ; on the other hand, he felt that a great injustice 
 was done to him by his brother, who first inveigled him into 
 committing this evil act, and then betrayed him. In lime this 
 episode was forgotten, but the small boy became thoughtful 
 and serious minded ; as he grew older he became a champion 
 of oppressed classmates and gradually decided to become a 
 judge. When he graduated from college he took up the 
 study of law and realized his wish. 
 
 What was just enumerated was discovered during the 
 analysis of a stereotyped dream which appeared on two oc- 
 casions while the dreamer was under an anesthetic, the second 
 time after an interval of twenty years. The dreamer 
 imagined that it was the Day of Judgment, and thai he ^tood 
 before God, who asked him questions; although he knew
 
 3 20 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 the answers he refused to give them and was jeered by the 
 multitude. God in the dream was his father, and being 
 examined on the Day of Judgment referred to the episode 
 just related. The father in the dream as well as in daily 
 life is often substituted by the Governor, the Mayor, and 
 by God himself. 1 Mr. C., who is now about fifty-five years 
 old, had no conscious knowledge of the cigarette episode and 
 the part it played in his life until his dream was analyzed. 
 When he finished his story I remarked that there was one 
 other vocation that he might have taken up, the ministry, 
 because in my experience this vocation is often followed by 
 persons who unconsciously feel remorse for some crime 
 committed in childhood or as a reaction to temptations in 
 later life. He confirmed my statement by telling me that he 
 was in doubt as to which of the two vocations to take up, 
 and if it were not for the fact that his religious feelings 
 underwent a great change during his college years he would 
 have become a minister of the gospel. He was undecided 
 about it until he graduated from college — it was always a 
 question between the ministry or the law. 
 
 Unconscious and sometimes conscious feelings of guilt 
 and remorse as a reaction to real or imaginary sins are often 
 the basis of theological callings. This mechanism is clearly 
 seen in such religious groups as the Salvation Army and 
 some Missions. If one attends such religious meetings one 
 invariably hears confessions such as, "I was a thief and a low 
 sinner until I saw the light of the Lord; two years later I 
 was a backslider, but again I found Him," etc. Some of 
 the converts fluctuate all the time between heaven and hell. 
 Here the maladjustment is so marked that sublimation is 
 imperfect or almost impossible; this accounts for the chronic 
 backsliding and the repeated changes from one religion to 
 
 1 Freud: "The Interpretation of Dreams," translated by A. A. 
 Brill, The Macmillan Company, New York.
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 321 
 
 another. Only a few months ago the daily press reported 
 the case of a clergyman who changed for the third time from 
 one denomination to another. 
 
 I know a similar case of a man who fluctuates between 
 fervent Evangelism and extreme Atheism. He is a morbidly 
 religious person who is making desperate efforts to adjust 
 himself, and depending on the reaction of the time he either 
 preaches the gospel or the non-existence of God. I was 
 also impressed by the number of dissatisfied and struggling 
 homosexuals who follow religious callings. 
 
 Sublimation of infantile exhibitionism 1 often impels one 
 to follow the stage, the army, or the vocation of life saver. 
 The actor and the professional soldier are sublimated exhi- 
 bitionists par excellence; the latter is also unconsciously 
 dominated by a strong aggressive component. The aggres- 
 sive component which under certain conditions changes to 
 sadism is found in the sexuality of most men. "It is a 
 propensity to subdue, the biological significance of which 
 lies in the necessity of overcoming the resistance of the sexual 
 object by actions other than mere courting." 2 This com- 
 ponent is seen throughout life in its sublimated form, one 
 notes it in the aggressive business man, in the lawyer, in 
 the satirical speaker and in its accentuated form in the 
 soldier. Among the first games of boys one invariably finds 
 the playing of soldier, and the need for such outlets is readily 
 seen in the popularity of the Boy Scout movement, and the 
 admiration that has been bestowed on soldiers from time 
 immemorial. 
 
 Acting also belongs to the earliest games of children. In 
 fact, most playing of children is acting. It is known that a 
 great many nervous people are good actors ; they are natural 
 
 1 Freud: "Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex," p. 53 
 Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases Pub. 
 Co. 
 
 "Ibid., p. 22.
 
 322 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 actors. Hysterical persons can imitate almost anything; 
 they are the best tragedians as well as the best comedians. 
 And if we consider the nature and mechanism, namely, the 
 inability to adjust or fix properly one's libido, we can readily 
 understand the psychology of the actor. The actor utilizes 
 this very inferiority as a sublimation. Actors are persons 
 who are usually unable to fix properly their libido. Due to 
 some unconscious disturbance their emotional transference 
 is more or less inhibited, so that they are unable to develop 
 fixed characteristics; they remain more or less infantile and 
 are therefore able to identify themselves with the great 
 characters they represent on the stage ; they are still mould- 
 able, as it were. That accounts for some of the characteristic 
 traits of the actor. I refer to the sexual maladjustment as 
 evinced in uninhibited morality and marital unsteadiness 
 which have been attributed to stage folks in all lands and at 
 all ages. To be rigid or at least regular in the sense of fol- 
 lowing the dictum of society in one's sex life presupposes a 
 well-adjusted and fixed libido. Now I do not wish to imply 
 that the actor is to be considered inferior because he mani- 
 fests this maladjustment of his love life; on the contrary he 
 has the courage to put in operation what the average person 
 secretly desires. That is why we admire the actor, and that 
 accounts for the popularity of plays which deal with the 
 primitive impulses. They offer us a mental catharsis, we 
 cry and laugh at the play because we identify ourselves with 
 the actor, to wit, with the hounded rogue or ideal hero, 
 whom he represents. The actor's identification with the 
 stage character is well illustrated by the following story. 
 An admirer of the great actor Booth, after witnessing his 
 wonderful performance of King Lear, asked the famous 
 tragedian to explain the secret of his skillful rendition to this 
 character. Booth, turning very abruptly, responded, "Sir, 
 I am Lear."
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 323 
 
 It is due to the same mechanism that only few great actors 
 have ever produced original works that could lay claim to 
 individuality. They are so used to identify themselves with 
 their stage characters that they find no time to develop a 
 steady and fixed character of their own. For the character of 
 a person is nothing but the sum total of one's past im- 
 pressions. 
 
 My own investigation with life savers convinces me that 
 most of them take genuine delight in their vocation mainly 
 because they love to display their well-developed muscles. 
 Professional athletes and "sports" are dominated by the 
 same exhibitionistic impulse, most of the latter, however, 
 unable to exhibit themselves, gain pleasure by identifying 
 themselves with the actors (ball players, fighters, etc.). 
 
 Some of the vocations can be traced to very early infantile 
 sexual traits. Thus I know of a maker of optical instru- 
 ments, a successful manager of a big camera department, 
 and three photographers who were punished in childhood 
 for evincing a strong curiosity for sexual looking, and 
 although they did not become voyeurs, they all manifested a 
 strong tendency for looking. I have reported the case of a 
 man who displayed in early childhood a strong perverted 
 impulse for odors, 1 who became a successful perfume dealer, 
 after he was a failure in two other vocations. Uncon- 
 sciously such people take up the vocations that gratify them 
 in a sublimated form. The reader need not be surprised 
 and shocked merely because some people who are doing 
 useful work merged into it through sexual impressions of 
 childhood. There is nothing wrong about it. Some of the 
 most sublime institutions in this world had their origin in sex. 
 
 In analyzing a man who became rich from an invention, 
 or rather an improvement of patterns for ladies' apparel, 
 I found the following facts: He was brought Up in a small 
 
 'Brill, hoc. c\i., p. 135.
 
 324 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 settlement in very poor surroundings. His father was un- 
 ambitious, apparently not a very strong character, while his 
 mother, to whom he was very much attached, was a very 
 hard working woman who had a constant struggle to keep 
 the wolf from the door. She was rarely able to save enough 
 money to buy new clothes for the children and herself, and 
 as a little boy he was often moved to tears when she bewailed 
 her sad lot. It was the strong wish to grow up and work for 
 his mother which later guided him unconsciously to occupy 
 himself so assiduously with things relating to women's ap- 
 parel through which he made a fortune. 
 
 Some selections of professions are quite puzzling. One 
 wonders why some people take up the heavy brass instru- 
 ments or the bass-drum in music. For the information of 
 some it may be said that the players on these instruments 
 usually have as much knowledge of music as any member of 
 the band. One might therefore ask why they prefer instru- 
 ments that can be used only in conjunction with a band and 
 which offer little if any outlet in any other way. I have not 
 had the opportunity to study many such people, so that I am 
 not offering anything conclusive. I know two drum players 
 and two saxhorn players. 
 
 Mr. T., a drummer in an orchestra, told me that as a little 
 boy of 4, 5, or 6 years he was very anxious to have a drum ; 
 the neighbor's boy received one for Christmas and he begged 
 his father for one and cried for it, but the latter either did 
 not wish to buy it for him or was perhaps too poor to do so. 
 One evening the neighbor's door was open and no one 
 seemed to be home; he walked quietly into the house and 
 stole the drum. He hid it for a while, but as he could not 
 resist the temptation to beat on it he was soon caught with 
 the goods. The punishment was severe and produced a 
 very strong impression. At the age of seventeen years he 
 began to study the violin, and a few years later he joined
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 325 
 
 an amateur orchestra, playing second violin. A vacancy 
 for the drummer's place then occurred and he volunteered 
 to fill it. In a very short time he became such an accom- 
 plished player on this instrument that he obtained a lucrative 
 position in a big orchestra. 
 
 Mr. X., the other kettle drum player, was very fond of 
 music and studied it for years. He, too, volunteered to take 
 the position of drummer in a band and has played on this 
 instrument ever since. Mr. X. came to me for treatment 
 because of bash fulness. He had always been a very seclusive 
 and reserved person afraid to speak to people. It was 
 impossible for him to put himself en rapport with anybody. 
 He became tongue-tied whenever he came in contact with 
 people, men or women. When he first came to this city 
 he refused to live in a boarding house because he was afraid 
 he would have to sit at the same table with people who 
 might talk to him. Before taking up music as a profession 
 he lost his position in an office because he was unable to 
 talk to the manager of his department. Here the drum fits 
 in well with his nature ; the drum is not an instrument that 
 talks along fluently with the other instruments, as, e.g., the 
 violin or clarinet; though it is a part of the band it is never- 
 theless more or less aloof in its behavior and it can always 
 be heard when it speaks. In the case of Mr. X. it served 
 as a compensation for his enforced quietude. 
 
 The players on the heavy brass instruments showed similar 
 mechanisms to the one found in X. One observes that 
 people playing on drums, basses, or heavy brass instruments 
 are not of the same type as those who play the first violin, 
 and are altogether different in makeup from those who lead 
 the band. They are often people who for some reason or 
 other must stand away from the crowd, who are not very 
 good "mixers," but would like to be. 
 
 I have spoken to a number of people who were rubbers
 
 326 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 in Turkish baths. I found that in some cases the vocation 
 went back to the infantile desire for touching, in others it 
 was distinctly pathological, and still others have taken up 
 this vocation because it alleviates their own physical ailments. 
 I have in mind one man who has been a "rubber" for about 
 twenty years. He told me that he suffered from rheumatism 
 and was told that Turkish baths would help him ; as his aches 
 diminished through the baths he decided to take up some 
 occupation in the baths and became a rubber. 
 
 A few street cleaners have also been examined. Some 
 were seen by me, and a few by former patients who kindly 
 volunteered to assist me. There seem to be two types of 
 street cleaners, some who are quite old or incapacitated to 
 an extent that they are unable to follow their former voca- 
 tions, and others select street cleaning as a vocation of 
 preference. The latter are usually clean-cut men of about 
 35 years and one wonders why they should be attracted to 
 street cleaning. Of the few examined, some seemed to have 
 retained the infantile coprophilia and, like children, liked 
 to wallow in dirt. One of my friends brought me a report 
 of a man of about 35 years, a street cleaner, who described 
 the difficulties he had to encounter to obtain this position; 
 that he had to pass examinations and had to get some 
 political influence, etc., etc. This man distinctly stated that 
 he "loved" his work because "I love to see the water flush 
 the streets and clean them through and through." His whole 
 life seemed to be in his work, as he described it. This man 
 recalls Boitelle by Maupassant, who "made a specialty of 
 undertaking dirty jobs all through the countryside. When- 
 ever there was a ditch or a cesspool to be cleaned out, a 
 dunghill removed, a sewer cleansed, or any dirt hole what- 
 ever, he was always employed to do it." Dr. Karpas, from 
 whose interesting paper I am quoting, 1 states : "Boitelle was 
 
 1 Karpas : Freud's Psychology, New York Journal, June 14, 1913-
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 327 
 
 disappointed in love — he was not allowed to marry a negress 
 with whom he was deeply in love. Thus his ungratified 
 wish — to marry a negress who was forbidden him by his 
 parents and by society — found a substitute in the selection 
 of a particular vocation which was likewise dirty and dis- 
 agreeable to society." 
 
 One of the street cleaners who came under my observa- 
 tion presented almost a similar mechanism. He was an 
 able-bodied man of about 40 years who could give no reason 
 for selecting this vocation. When asked about it, he said 
 it was "as rotten and dirty as any other — what does it matter 
 what you do ?" He was an avowed anarchist and took every 
 occasion to decry the rottenness of our social system. I 
 heard him a few years ago at a public meeting where he 
 protested against being forced by the Street Cleaning De- 
 partment to march with a dirty broom on his shoulder. He 
 was fiery in his denunciation, to the extent of advocating 
 violence. I was unable to enter into his intimate life, but 
 may we not assume that his vocation was an unconscious 
 effort to clean up the rottenness of society which seemed to 
 trouble him so much? I have no doubt that had we been 
 able to enter into this man's life we would have found be- 
 sides some infantile determinant. 
 
 Besides the specific forms of sublimation, as seen in 
 special vocations, one also notices certain modes of sublima- 
 tion of a more or less general nature. "Only" children and 
 first-borns, who, by virtue of their positions in the family, 
 become domineering and officious * usually select the vocation 
 requiring leadership, such as teachers, religious and political 
 leaders, while the youngest child, who was bullied and 
 intimidated by his older brothers, is generally satisfied with 
 a subordinate position in life. I have- mentioned only very 
 few examples of the mechanism of selection of vocation that 
 
 'Brill, hoc. cit., p. 279.
 
 328 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 have come under my observation, but these suffice to show 
 the forces that one generally finds behind selected vocations. 
 There is always some psychic determinant which laid the 
 foundation for the later vocation, and if not interfered with 
 the individual is unconsciously guided to express his sublima- 
 tion in that particular form. It makes no difference whether 
 a man is a financier, preacher, actor, physician, cook, or 
 shoemaker, provided he himself has selected this vocation and 
 was not forced into it by home environments or social con- 
 ditions ; he will find his proper outlet in his work and under 
 normal conditions he will never become fatigued by it or 
 wearied of it. Most of the failures in life are due to the 
 fact that one tries to do what one is unfit for or unwilling 
 to accomplish. Incidentally, I wish to say that no one 
 ever suffers a nervous breakdown from overwork. Of 
 course, I am not referring to breakdown as a result of 
 physical factors which are seen among workers in factories 
 under unsanitary conditions, but to the so-called nervous 
 breakdown as a result of overwork. Strictly speaking, 
 these maladies do not exist. When one investigates such 
 nervous breakdowns one invariably finds that many of them 
 belong to the psychoses ; others represent well-developed 
 neuroses which were brought to the surface by any of the 
 provoking agents one always encounters in such maladies, 
 and in still others one finds that the work or vocation was 
 always accompanied by severe resistances, and that instead of 
 representing a natural outlet it was monotonous drudgery. 
 When one takes the history of such persons one finds that 
 they were always more or less discontented, that they were 
 in constant need of vacations, and were always ailing. Con- 
 tented workers have to be forced to take vacations. Vaca- 
 tions as commonly understood are neurotic fads which ad- 
 justed persons don't want and which are of no benefit to 
 those who clamor for them. The fact that most vacations
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 329 
 
 really cause fatigue shows that their alleged purpose is just 
 a blind. The adjusted person works for work's sake— his 
 vocation represents a part of his "cosmic urge" and hence he 
 is unable to stop. That answers those who are puzzled why 
 some of our multimillionaires continue to work untiringly. 
 It is surely not for the love of money, as most think. On 
 the other hand, there are cases on record of men who died 
 soon after giving up lifelong vocations. 
 
 There are also a great many failures due to the fact that 
 people follow certain vocations for which they are mentally 
 unfit. Such persons are usually defectives who have not 
 enough insight into their own ability and cannot at any time 
 sublimate properly; this is clearly seen in their love-life, 
 wherein they evince rapid attachments and just as ready de- 
 tachments of their libido. They are unable to fix on either 
 the love object or vocation; they are pathological flirts. 
 The other failures are due to exogenous factors; not a few 
 among those were forced into their vocations by some 
 authority, and were then prevented by conscious or uncon- 
 scious circumstances from changing to something else. Such 
 persons merge in time into a neurosis, which is nothing but 
 a manifestation of their inadequate adjustment, and often 
 enough forces them to give up their work and take up some- 
 thing else. Unconsciously physicians have always sensed this 
 mechanism, and for years it was customary to advise nervous 
 patients to take up another vocation which they selected for 
 them. Such selections were invariably doomed to failure, as 
 no person of normal mind, even though neurotic, should be 
 advised as to the selection of a vocation. The few attempts 
 which I made to advise patients as to what to do invariably 
 proved undesirable. 
 
 Miss R., a school teacher, became nervous and had to be 
 rolled in a chair for a number of years. After being treated 
 for quite a time she finally recovered. She did not wish to
 
 330 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 return to teaching and I suggested that she take up a certain 
 course in the School of Philanthropy at Columbia Univer- 
 sity; I felt that that would be the desirable thing under the 
 circumstances. She thought it was a splendid idea, and 
 acted upon it at once. I did not see her for a few weeks, 
 when one day she called upon me at my office. She was in 
 tears, and I feared at first that her symptoms reappeared. 
 After I calmed her, she began to explain that she hated the 
 course; when I asked her why she continued with it, she 
 simply argued : "Well, Doctor, you told me to take it." In 
 other words, here she was struggling along for weeks, un- 
 happy and discontented, because I took it upon myself to 
 advise her. She went on to tell me that though she could 
 not recover all of her tuition fee, she was quite willing to 
 drop the course. When I inquired what she expected to 
 do now, she told me that she would like to make lamp 
 shades. I assure you that was the last tiling that would ever 
 occur to me. She has been making lamp shades ever since, 
 and I am glad to say, that she is getting along very well. The 
 point is that she is happy and loves her work simply because 
 it was her own selection. 
 
 I had a similar experience with Mr. S., who was con- 
 siderably rich and philanthropic. When he was cured, I 
 urged him to enter some occupation, but was at a loss as to 
 what to advise him to undertake. Dr. Putnam of Boston 
 happened to be in New York at that time and he suggested 
 that inasmuch as the patient was charitable and had a regular 
 income it would be a capital idea for him to open up an 
 office and mete out his charitable donations himself. I 
 thought it was a happy suggestion and I imparted it at once 
 to Mr. S., who was quite enthusiastic over it. After a few 
 weeks, however, he came to me, utterly disgusted, declaring 
 impatiently: "I can't do the damned thing; I hate those 
 people; I'll give them the money but I don't want to talk
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 331 
 
 to them." When I asked him what he would like to do, I 
 learned that he had been thinking of entering the art business 
 which, he said, he loved and had been interested in for years. 
 I discussed the plan with him and the only counsel I gave 
 him was to go into partnership with a person who was fully 
 acquainted with the strictly business end of the undertaking. 
 He has done very well since then and is now considered a 
 connoisseur in his profession. 
 
 As in the selection of a mate, a sensible person needs no 
 advice and wants none, and fools will fail in spite of the best 
 guidance, for we can only do well those things that we do 
 with our hearts, with our whole souls. The people who 
 themselves selected their vocations, whose cases I cited, were 
 successful in their various callings, because their vocations 
 supplemented or substituted their primitive components. 
 The German expression, "Arbeit macht das Leben suss," is 
 literally true in cases where the work represents an outlet 
 for the individual. This is true of all vocations. Those of 
 you who have lived abroad and frequented the less preten- 
 tious restaurants remember how proud a French or Italian 
 cook is of his or her special dish, and how pleased the host 
 is when his guest enjoys his meal. One can see they derive 
 genuine pleasure from their work. I feel that the restlessness 
 and dissatisfaction among our working classes, which often 
 results in strikes, is not altogether due to the causes generally 
 attributed to them. It is not so much a question of money 
 as of emotion. Owing to the many inventions which have 
 gradually transformed manual labor into machine work, the 
 laborer no longer finds the same interest in his work. The 
 shoemaker no longer makes a shoe, but as a hand in the 
 shoe factory he constantly performs one simple thing which 
 is of no interest to him and which soon becomes drudgery. 
 When one compares this factory worker to the shoemaker of 
 yore who took the measurements, selected the leather, and
 
 332 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 then put his whole personality into the making of the shoe, 
 one can understand why the latter, as we still find him in 
 some parts of Europe, is a much happier man. 
 
 On the other hand, I have seen many perfectly normal 
 people who were failures in life simply because they were 
 not allowed to follow their own inclinations. Instead of 
 being prepared for life in general, their parents felt it 
 necessary to accompany and guide them through every detail. 
 Some of them struggled for 20 and 30 years with vocations 
 which their fathers imposed upon them and stopped being 
 failures only after their fathers' death, when they took up 
 something which they really liked. 
 
 Thus I have known a man whose father compelled him 
 to study music, despite his resistances. When he completed 
 an excellent education in music in this country, he was sent 
 to Berlin. The teacher declared that he possessed technique 
 but lacked warmth and emotion. The father was obdurate, 
 and insisted that the young man continue his studies. When 
 the son reached the age of twenty-six, however, he took a 
 full breath, as it were, and dropped music; thereafter he 
 turned from one vocation to another, only to be compelled 
 to return to music in every case. He continued to do this 
 until his father died, when he entered the insurance business, 
 in which he is now doing excellently. 
 
 Likewise, much harm is often done by parents who take 
 it upon themselves to decide the child's future career. I 
 have seen a boy of about ten or eleven years old, brought to 
 me by his father who considered him incorrigible. He in- 
 formed me that the boy refused to do what he was told, took 
 absolutely no interest in his studies and flatly insisted on not 
 going to school. I examined the boy and found that he was 
 mentally perfectly normal. When I asked him why he did 
 not wish to study, he said, "Well, I don't want to be a 
 lawyer." "And what would you like to be?" "Oh, well,"
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 333 
 
 he quickly replied, "I would like to raise strawberries." 
 When he was in the country, the gardener had told him that 
 there was a good deal of money in raising strawberries ; what 
 was more, he liked strawberries exceedingly, and so he de- 
 cided to make raising strawberries his life work. I assured 
 him that his father would have no objection to it, but that 
 he would first have to learn how to read and write; upon 
 which he went on to say that if his father would promise 
 him that he may raise strawberries, he would go to school. 
 As you may imagine, the father perpetually kept on dinning 
 into the poor boy's ears that he would have to be a lawyer ; 
 every time the child made some error, he would zealously 
 remind him that "he would make a devil of a lawyer." The 
 youngster was already sick and tired of the law at the tender 
 age of ten; and was it any wonder? I then called in the 
 father and after treating him for a little while, I had him 
 promise to permit the youngster to raise strawberries in July. 
 The boy did very well following this, and when summer 
 came he at once set about realizing his ideal. He worked 
 with the gardener for half a day, when he grew disgusted and 
 decided to drop the profession altogether. He is now at- 
 tending college. This boy developed so many resistances to 
 his father and his ideas that he retaliated by simply refusing 
 to do anything. The parents thought that he was vicious 
 and abnormal simply because he revolted against a vocation 
 which his father had selected for him from the very begin- 
 ning. It is highly advisable, then, that the average normal 
 individual be permitted to select his own vocation. 
 
 When we look back upon the field we have surveyed in this 
 brief course, we find one fact standing out very prominently. 
 It is a highly significant fact and we find it in one 
 form or another, in practically every subject that 
 we have taken up. Indeed, we may say that it served as a
 
 334 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 basis for our whole discussion, — the fact that all uncon- 
 scious mentation is motivated fundamentally by the wish. 
 
 We began with the symptom and we found that in the final 
 analysis it represents the realization of a hidden wish. This 
 we observed to hold true not only in the field of the neurosis 
 but in the field of the psychosis as well. We saw in the 
 very first case that I cited that the hysterical symptom in the 
 arm was a compromise between two psychic streams, the 
 foreconscious and the unconscious respectively, representing 
 the fulfillment of a hidden wish. We noted the patient's 
 mental conflict. She could not accept the young man's 
 failure to propose as proof that he took no interest in her, 
 yet she could not understand why he should not propose. 
 We saw how her state of marked emotional tension was 
 brought to a climax when the young man pressed her arm on 
 the night before he left, and how it was this emotionally ac- 
 centuated incident that she wished to retain in memory. For 
 it was then that she expected he would say the long-expected 
 word. Analysis revealed that it was this marked mental 
 state that became converted into the pain, that the hysterical 
 symptom was but a concrete expression of her inner wish. 
 
 We see the same conversion in the psychoses. But here, 
 the process is much farther reaching and more violent in re- 
 action ; in order to attain his wish, the individual is compelled 
 to tear himself away from reality altogether. We tried to 
 make this clear by citing several cases. We saw in the in- 
 stance of the tailor who had been maltreated by the farmer 
 and his sons an attempt at first at a solution of the problem 
 through the regular channels of social justice. But when 
 this failed, he tore himself away from reality altogether, real- 
 izing his desire for redress in his hallucinatory condition. 
 We saw a more marked example of the same condition in 
 the case of the young woman who developed delusions of 
 reference, when she realized that she had lost the man in
 
 SELECTIONS OF VOCATIONS 335 
 
 whom she was interested. Here, the rationalizing process 
 which was quite unconscious, is noteworthy. Forced to the 
 conclusion that she lost the man because she was too reserved 
 and moral, the patient attempts to readjust herself to the new 
 condition by imagining that she really is immoral. "He left 
 me because I am immoral :" that is how she realizes her un- 
 conscious wish. 
 
 The psychopathological action, — the slip of the tongue, the 
 various "little" mistakes we make from day to day, — all fol- 
 low the same wish tendency. When the young man wrote 
 "maternity" instead of "fraternity," there is no doubt at all 
 that he expressed in that way what was uppermost on his 
 mind : his ardent wish to enter upon matrimony. The un- 
 conscious never lies. When a young woman writes: "From 
 now on I am going to be running back home" when she 
 should have written : "From now on I am not going to be 
 running back home," we may be sure that she wishes to re- 
 turn, and other things being equal, that she will. This is 
 borne out by the facts. The young woman in question was 
 experiencing many conflicts in her work as a sales-person for 
 a publishing house. The letter in which the above slip oc- 
 curred was written directly upon arriving in her field, which 
 she had left as many as three times, only to return again on 
 the persuasion of her field manager. The letter was in- 
 tended to assure the manager that she was no longer ex- 
 periencing any mental conflicts regarding the work, but her 
 mistake showed clearly her real state of mind, for a week 
 later actually found her back again home. 
 
 The examples given in our discussion of wit show con- 
 clusively the wish motive. This was particularly shown in 
 tendency wits where the hostile or sex wishes always show 
 themselves. When we come to dreams, the wish motive In- 
 comes more and more evident. The latent content of the 
 dream invariably expresses a hidden wish. The individual
 
 336 PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 craves for something, but as he cannot attain it in reality, it is 
 realized for him in the dream. I am not going to stop to give 
 any examples ; the numerous dreams we have cited all show 
 the wish tendency very clearly. 
 
 In collections, and in a highly more sublimated form, in 
 the selections of vocations also, we have the same wish 
 tendency in evidence. Fairy tales, too, as we saw, follow the 
 same trend : they are poetic productions containing some wish 
 which the individual was unable to realize in reality. And 
 finally, all normal and abnormal artistic expression is no ex- 
 ception to our rule, for in the final analysis, the artistic pro- 
 duction is nothing but a wish compromise, emanating from 
 the unconscious mental activity of the individual endowed 
 with talent.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abreaction 
 
 meaning, 9 
 
 example 14 
 Actor, as exhibitionist, 321-323 
 Adam and Eve, significance of 
 
 story, 67, 209 
 Adjustment, 30, 189, 191 
 
 dependent on home environ- 
 ment, 223, 277 _ 
 
 in relation to fairy tales, 296 
 
 in the neurosis and psychosis, 
 
 35, 40 
 Aggression, sexual, 129, 130, 132, 
 
 135 
 "coprophilic" wit of, 135 
 Agoraphobia 43 
 Alexander the Great, 309 
 Algolagnia, 307 
 Ambivalency, of feeling, 232 
 Amnesia, posthypnotic, 16 
 Andersen, 209, 210, 300, 305 
 Animals, identification with, 232- 
 
 240, 243 
 Animism, in wit, 122 
 Anticipation dream, 174 
 Anxiety. (See Fear.) 
 Anxiety dreams, 171, 172, 184, 
 
 189, 192-194 
 Anxiety hysteria, 42, 43, 177, 182 
 Aphasia, 49, 68, 75 
 Aretaeus, 2 
 Aristotle, 310 
 Artificial dreams, 195-200 
 Artistic productions, 308-312 
 among insane, 310-312 
 autoerotism in modern, 311, 
 
 312 
 difference between dreams, 
 
 symptoms, etc., and 3°9> 
 
 310 
 
 Artistic productions 
 (continued), 
 difference between sane and 
 
 insane, 311, 312 
 infantile expression in modern, 
 
 62, 311 
 relation to artist's life, 310, 311 
 similarity of modern to insane, 
 
 312 
 wish in, 308-310, 336 
 Athlete as exhibitionist, 323 
 Autoerotic love, 189 
 in insane artistic productions, 
 
 3", 312 
 Automatism, in wit, 119, 120 
 
 Bacon, 289 
 
 Barber's pole, significance, 65 
 
 Baudesson, Captain, 88 
 
 Beard, 5 
 
 Beechstein, Ludwig, 299 
 
 Behaviorists, 62 
 
 Bell, Sanford, 70 
 
 Bernheim, 16 
 
 Binet-Simon tests, 63 
 
 Bleuler, 52, 63, 89, 197, 257, 258 
 
 Boitelle, 326 
 
 Booth, 322 
 
 Brahma, 289 
 
 Breuer, 7, 16 
 
 Buddha, 289 
 
 Burroughs, John, 244 
 
 Catatonic (characteristics), 256, 
 
 257 
 Cathartic method, 9, 12 
 Censor psychic, 225-227, 246 
 Charcot, 6, 7 
 Charnwood, Lord, 134 
 Chavan Narischkin, Countess, 103 
 Christmas, 67 
 
 337
 
 338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chronic engagements, psychology 
 
 of, 223 
 Civilization, 26, 27, 30, 32, 112, 
 
 127, 130-132, 136, 161, 162, 
 
 186, 187, 266, 313 
 Collections, psychology of, 102- 
 
 110,336 
 Comparison, basis of thinking, 
 
 59-64, 68 
 Complex, 
 
 meaning 13 
 
 "prostitution complex," 45 
 "Complex readiness," 89, 90, Q7 
 
 case of, 90, 91 
 Components, partial, 128, 129, 
 
 304, .313, 3i6, _3i7, 321 
 Compulsion neurosis, 43 
 Concealing memories, 68-75, J 79, 
 
 182 
 Condensation, 
 in dreams, 117, 125, 170, 224, 
 
 225 
 in wit, 115-117 
 Confucius, 289, 294 
 Conscious, the, conception of, 16, 
 
 225, 226 
 Consolation dream, 227, 229 
 Continuous association, 18, 19, 
 
 53 . 
 Convenience dream, 149 
 Conversion, 12, 334 
 Crepuscular state (of sleep), 
 
 140 
 Criminal, 
 in relation to dreams, 158, 159 
 related to liar, 207 
 Crown prince, origin of institu- 
 tion, 279, 280, 288 
 
 "David Copperfield," 311 
 
 Da Vinci, Leonardo, 219, 220, 
 
 311 
 Day dreams, 195 
 Death, 
 
 dreams of, 210-217, 221, 222, 
 
 223-226 
 significance to child, 210 
 Defectives, 19, 26, 27, 62, 190, 
 203, 329 
 
 Delusions, 
 distinguished from illusions, 39 
 of grandeur, 205 
 of reference, 45, 266, 334 
 of self-accusation, 286 
 of transformation, 239 
 Dementia precox, 28, 29, 191, 
 253-261, 286 
 difference between manic- 
 depressive insanity and, 
 263 
 relation to normal person, 278 
 Determinant of dream, 140, 155, 
 
 173, 192-195. 245, 248 
 Dickens, Charles, 98, 208, 311 
 Diseases, nervous and mental, 
 2-7 
 difference between nervous and 
 
 mental, 253 
 Mental, two entities, 27- 
 
 29 
 Displacement, 69, 179, 185 
 from below to above, 172 
 in dreams, 125 
 in wit, 117-119 
 Disraeli, 115 
 Distortion, 
 in dreams, 154-157, 164, 165, 
 
 226 
 in wit, 157 
 Dostoyevski, 98 
 "Double entendre," 151, 154 
 Dream, the, 139-252 
 
 analogous to symptom, 176- 
 
 182, 183 
 anticipation, 174 
 anxiety, 171, 172 184, 189, 191, 
 
 192 
 artificial, 195-200 
 as guardian of sleep, 147-151 
 condensation in, 117, 125, 170, 
 
 224, 225 
 consolation, 227, 229 
 convenience, 149 
 day dreams, 195 
 difference between wit and, 
 
 .137, 138 
 displacement in, 125 
 distortion in, 154-157, 164, 165, 
 226
 
 INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 Dream, the (continued) , 
 
 determinant of, 140, 155, 173, 
 
 192-195, 245, 248 
 of death of relatives, 210-217, 
 
 221-226 
 egocentric, 213, 249, 252 
 manifoldly determined, 240- 
 
 252 
 of missing train, 229 
 examination, 226, 227 
 exhibition, 209, 210 
 falling, 230, 231 
 flying, 229, 230 
 function and motive of, 139- 
 
 183 
 
 identification with animals in, 
 232-240, 243 
 
 in pubescent age, 190, 191 
 
 latent, 177, 178, 181 -183, 247, 
 250, 335 
 
 "local," 231, 232 
 
 manifest, 177, 182, 250 
 
 CEdipus, 214-217 
 
 "prophetic," 143, T 44. 227, 228, 
 229 
 
 relation to unconscious, 23 
 
 relation to wit, 137 
 
 representation through oppo- 
 site in, 125 
 
 resemblance between wit and, 
 
 137 
 
 resolution, 228 
 
 sense in nonsense in , 125 
 
 stimuli, internal and external, 
 and, 140, 141, 143-146, 155- 
 249 
 
 strata of, 175 
 
 streams of, 246 
 
 wish in, 23, 147-150, 153" 
 155, 158, 159, 163-167, 171, 
 184, 192, 193, 199, 210, 211, 
 226, 228-230, 234, 244-246, 
 
 252, 335, 336 
 Dream book, 140 
 Dreamy state (of sleep), 140 
 Dressmaking, art of, 210 
 
 Education, 160, 161, 237 
 Ellipsis, in wit, 122 
 Emerson, 265 
 
 Empathic index, 169, 170 
 Environment, 21 
 
 in the psychosis, 206 
 
 relation to only child, 279, 296 
 Epilepsy, psychic, 53, 54 
 Equivalents, psychic, 53, 54 
 Erasmus, 289 
 Erb, Heinrich, 6 
 Ethnic symbols, 65-67, 152 
 Examination dream, 226, 227 
 Exhibition dream, 209, 210 
 Exhibitionism, 128, 129, 321 
 
 in wit, 127 
 
 Fairy tales, 296-308 
 as emotional outlet, 300 
 pernicious influences of, 300- 
 
 308, 313 
 wish in, 296-300, 308, 336 
 Falling dream, significance, 230, 
 
 231 
 Fear, 43, 184, 185, 188, 189, 192 
 
 of burglars, 101, 102, 185 
 Fetichism, meaning, 109 
 Fixation, upon parent, 217, 281- 
 
 284, 293 
 Flying dream, 229, 230 
 "Folies a deux," form of insan- 
 ity, 268 
 "Folies de dout," 43 
 Foch, Marshal, 307 
 Foreconscious, 15, 16, 40, 225, 
 
 226, 334 
 Forgetting, 
 concealing memories, 68-75, 
 
 179, 182 
 of names, 76-86 
 psychology of, 49-59, 68-74, 
 
 75 
 typical case of, 51-59 
 Fortune teller, psychology of, 
 
 298 
 Freud, Sigmund, 1, 4-9, 14-18, 
 
 20-24, 29, 30, 40, 4'., 47. 
 
 51-53, 56, 69, 71. 76, 86, 
 
 no, in, 127, i.}-', i-A 189, 
 
 209, 214, 215, 287, 311, 320, 
 
 321 
 Frocbel, 289 
 'Fugue," 54
 
 34° 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Galatea, 309 
 Galen, 2 
 Galileo, 289 
 Goethe, 310, 311 
 Government, 136, 137 
 Grant, 288 
 Grimm, 299, 305 
 
 Hallucination, distinguished from 
 
 illusion, 39 
 Handshake, diagnostic point in 
 
 dementia praecox, 256 
 Harmless wit, 126, 133 
 Harrison, 288 
 Hayes, 288 
 Hippocrates, 1 
 Hobbies, psychology of, 102-110, 
 
 336 
 Homosexual, 321 
 
 dream of, 196 
 Horseshoe, origin of symbol, 109 
 Hugo, 292 
 
 Humor, sense of, in children, 164 
 Hunger, primary impulse, 32,315 
 Hypnotism, 
 
 difference between psychoana- 
 lytic method and, 18 
 
 in mental diseases, 6, 7 
 
 in relation to cathartic method, 
 89 
 Hysteria, 1 
 
 anxiety, 42, 43, 177, 182 
 
 case of, 7, 8 
 
 crying spells in, 31 
 
 Ibanez, 87 
 
 Identification, 142, 143, 169, 223, 
 237, 298, 322, 323 
 with animals, 167, 232-240, 243 
 Illusion, distinguished from hal- 
 lucination and delusion, 39 
 Infantile amnesia, 70, 71 
 Insanity, 
 
 as emotional outlet, 36, 37, 38 
 common forms of, 253, 254- 
 
 278 
 dementia praecox, 2S, 29, 191, 
 
 253-261, 263, 278, 286 
 difference between functional 
 and organic, 27 
 
 Insanity (continued), 
 insane artistic productions, 
 
 310-312 
 manic-depressive insanity, 28, 
 
 29, 177, 261-263 
 simulating insanity, 36, 37 
 paranoia, 264-278 
 Insomnia, causes of, 105 
 Intermediary sexual aims, 128 
 
 "Jean Christophe," 85 
 Johnson, 288 
 
 Karpas, Doctor, 326 
 
 Kepler, 289 
 
 King David, 135 
 
 King Lear, 322 
 
 Kiselak, first modern advertiser, 
 
 288, 289 
 Knight, Richard Payne, 66 
 Korsakoff's psychosis, 206 
 Kraepelin, 3, 4, 27, 28 
 
 Lang, 305 
 
 Lapses, 
 in reading, 97 
 in talking, 91, 92, 93-95 
 in writing, 88, 89, 95-97 
 
 Last child, relation to only child, 
 283, 285, 296 
 
 Latency period, place in child's 
 development, 189, 190 
 
 Latent dream, 177, 182, 247, 250, 
 
 335 
 Libido, 194 293, 322 
 fixation of, 217, 281-284 
 for looking and touching, 128, 
 
 323, 325, 326 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 134, 135, 169, 
 
 288 
 Life-saver, as exhibitionist, 321, 
 
 323 
 "Local" dreams, 231, 232 
 Locke's "tabula rasa," 20, 71 
 Losing symbolic action, 99-101 
 "Lothair," 115 
 Louise Lateau, case of, 207 
 Love (see Sex), instinct of, 32, 
 
 188, 223, 264, 281 
 
 Love-life (see Sex), 329 
 
 adjustment in, 30, 272
 
 INDEX 
 
 341 
 
 Love-life (continued), 
 as equivalent to sex, 29 
 cases of disturbances in, 31, 
 
 33, 34 
 Love object, enhancement of, 280 
 Luther, Martin, 289 
 Lycanthropia, 239 
 Lying, psychology of, 200-208 
 
 Madison, 288 
 Madonna cult, 219 
 Malingerers, 37, 207 
 Mania, 
 as symptom, 2, 3 
 doubting, 43 
 
 in dementia praecox, 28 
 in manic-depressive insanity, 
 29, 262, 263 
 Manic-depressive insanity, 28, 
 29, 177 182, 261-263 
 difference between dementia 
 
 praecox and, 263 
 in relation to normal person, 
 278 
 Manifest dream, 177, 182, 250 
 Marriage, 136, 137, 280 
 Masturbation, 255, 256, 270, 273, 
 
 277 
 in relation to dementia praecox, 
 255, 256 
 "Masculine protest," 235 
 Masochism, partial component, 
 
 304 316, 317 
 Mather, Cotton, 289 
 Maupassant, 153, 326 
 Melancholia, 
 as symptom, 2, 3 
 in dementia praecox, 28 
 in manic-depressive insanity, 
 29, 262 
 Mental diseases, 2-7, 27-29 
 distinguished from nervous 
 diseases, 253 
 Methodicalness, relation to de- 
 mentia praecox, 261 
 Meyer, Adolph, 3 
 Michelangelo, 19 
 Miles, 67 
 
 Missing train, dream of, 229 
 Mona Lisa, 219, 311 
 
 Morons, 63 
 
 Mother-in-law, psychology, 282, 
 
 283 
 Motion, elementary pleasure, 159, 
 
 231 
 
 Napoleon, 169, 170 
 Narcistic love, 189 
 Nebuchadnezzar, identification 
 
 with animal, 238, 239 
 Nero, 294 309 
 Nervous diseases, 2-7 
 difference between mental and, 
 
 253 
 
 Neurasthenia, 1, 28 
 meaning, 5 
 treatment, 5 
 cases of, 6 
 
 Neurosis, 26, 29, 31, 36, 37, 296, 
 328, 329, 334 
 as form of adjustment, 35-40 
 compulsion neurosis, 43 
 distinguished from psychosis, 
 
 27,. 44 
 sex in, 29 
 Neurotics, 25-27, 35, 44, 79, 295 
 "Noopsyche," relation to "thymo- 
 
 psyche," 178 
 Nonsense wit, 122 
 
 Object love, 189, 190 
 
 insane artistic productions, 
 310-312 
 CEdipus dreams, 214-217 
 "CEdipus Rex," 214 
 Oldest child, relation to only 
 
 child, 288, 289 
 Only child, 279-295, 296 
 
 aggressive qualities of, 288, 
 
 289 
 as leader, 289, 327 
 crown prince, origin of insti- 
 tution, 279, 280 
 dependent on parent's influ- 
 ence, 283 
 fixation on parent's image, 281- 
 
 284, 293, 294 
 oldest son, position in home, 
 279, 280
 
 34 2 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Only child (continued), 
 present economic system and, 
 
 295 
 prophylaxis and, 294, 295 
 relation to environment, 279, 
 
 296 
 sleeping with parents and, 291 
 transference of, 286-288 
 Organic forgetfulness, 50 
 Outdoing wit, 124, 125 
 
 Pan, 102 
 
 Paradise, conception of, 209 
 Paranoia, 264-278 
 relation to "normal" person, 
 278 
 Paranoiac, parts of history, 270- 
 
 277 
 Pater, 310 
 Pearson, 219 
 Peary, 149 
 Peeper, 128 
 Penn, William, 289 
 Perversion, meaning, 128 
 Pestalozzi, 289 
 Pets, as emotional outlet, 239, 
 
 240 
 Phallic symbols, 66 
 Phillips, Wendell, 132, 133 
 Pinel, Philippe, 2 
 Playing with dolls, influence of, 
 
 292 
 Pleasure principle, 159, 314 
 Poet, relation to liar, 207 
 "Poison needle" case, 192, 193 
 Poriomania, 54 
 Prepubescent age, 106, 189, 190, 
 
 281 
 Prescott, 207 
 
 Productions, artistic, 308, 312 
 Projection, 45 
 "Prophetic" dreams, significance, 
 
 143, 144, 227-229 
 Prophylaxis, 
 
 only child and, 294, 295 
 psychoanalysis and, 21, 46 
 Prostitution complex, 45 
 Prostitution fancies, 194 
 "Pseudologia phantastica," 205 
 
 Psychoanalysis, 
 
 as prophylaxis, 21, 46 
 differences between hypnotism 
 
 and, 18 
 limitations of, 46 
 meaning, 1 
 
 relation to defective, 19 
 similarity to sculpture, 18, 19 
 Psychology, 
 of actor, soldier, life-saver, etc., 
 
 321-323 
 of changing names, 86-88 
 of chronic engagements, 223 
 of collections, 102-110, 336 
 of crown prince institution, 279- 
 
 280,288 
 of fear of burglars, 101, 102, 185, 
 
 186 
 of forgetting, 49-59, 68-75 
 of forgetting names, 76-86 
 of fortune-teller, 298 
 of lapses in reading, writing, 
 
 etc., 88-97 
 of losing, 99-101 
 of lying, 200-208 
 of marriage among bachelors, 
 
 286 
 of mother-in-law, 282, 283 
 of playing with dolls, 292 
 of rivalry between father and 
 
 son, 214, 317 
 of smutty joke, 126-131, 133-136 
 of sneezing, 144 
 of vacations, 328, 329 
 of wit, 1 13-138 
 Psychopathological actions, I, 
 
 47, 49 5i, 335 
 Psychopathology of everyday 
 life, changing names, 86-88 
 collections, 102-110 
 forgetting names, 76-86 
 lapses in reading, writing, etc., 
 
 88-97 
 losing, 99-101 
 significance of, 24, 110-112 
 Psychosis, 29, 37-39, 277, 278, 
 296, 328, 334 
 distinguished from neurosis, 
 
 27, 44 
 form of adjustment, 35-40
 
 INDEX 
 
 343 
 
 Psychosis (continued), 
 Korsakoff's, 206 
 meaning of, 27, 44, 253 
 sex in, 29, 45 
 
 Puberty, 22, 32, 189-191, 254, 264 
 
 Purposeful wit, 125-137 
 
 Putnam, Doctor, 330 
 
 "Pygmalion," 293, 294 
 
 Reality, principle of, 160, 161, 
 
 296, 314 
 Representation through opposite, 
 
 in dreams, 125 
 
 in wit, 123 
 Repression, force of, 160-163, 186 
 Resolution dream, 228 
 Riklin, 298 
 Rivalry between father and son, 
 
 214, 317 
 Rolland, Romain, 85 
 Roosevelt, 91, 288 
 Rousseau, 290 
 
 Sadism, partial component, 304, 
 
 305, 316, 317, 321 
 Santo de Sanctis, 158 
 Saturnalia, 67 
 
 Sears, Lorenzo, Doctor, 132 
 Selections of vocations, 3U-333, 
 
 336 
 Senile dementia, 115, 282 
 Sense in nonsense, 
 
 in dreams, 125 
 
 in wit, 123, 124 
 Sex, 185 
 
 Ereud's concept of, 21-23, 29- 
 
 35. l88 
 in child and adult, 35, 106, 188, 
 
 189 
 in dementia prsecox, 29 
 in normal person, 30, 191 
 in paranoia, 264 
 origin of term "love," 186 
 sex impulse, 32, 154, 187, 188, 
 223 
 Sexual curiosity, 73, 74. 128, 190, 
 
 304, 323 o „ n 
 
 Sexual function, 186, 187 
 Shakespeare, 311 
 Shaw, Bernard, 168, 293, 294 
 
 Sleeping with parents, among 
 
 children, 291 
 Smutty joke, psychology of, 126- 
 
 131, 133-136 
 Sneezing, psychology of, 144 
 Sophocles, 214, 215 
 Spiritualism, psychology of, 298 
 St. Francis, 289 
 St. Paul, 66, 289 
 Stammering, 79-84 
 Stimuli, as dream inciters, 140, 
 
 141, 143-146, 155, 249 
 Strata of dream, 175 
 Sublimation, 320-322, 327, 328 
 
 meaning, 314 
 Suggestion, posthypnotic, 16, 17, 
 
 146 
 Suicide, 240, 262 
 idea of, as emotional outlet, 
 
 234 
 Swett, Leonard, 134 
 Symbols, 59-68, 151-153 
 Symbolic actions. (See Psy- 
 chopathology of everyday 
 life.) 
 Symptom, 147, 179 
 analogous to dream, 176-183 
 as compromise, 41-43 
 as outlet, 35-40 
 latent content of, 178 
 meaning of, 9, 12, 25 
 relation to unconscious and 
 
 foreconscious, 15, 16 
 wish in, 163, 334 
 
 "Talking cure," 8, 9 
 Taylor, 288 
 
 Technique of wit, 1 13-125 
 Tendencies of wit, 125-138 
 Thackeray, 98 
 Thumb-sucking, 159 
 "Thymopsyche," 178 
 Transference, 287 
 
 of only child. 286-288 
 Troglodytes, state of, 266 
 Tyler, 288 
 
 Unconscious, 76, 181, 183, 193, 
 
 209, 212, 213, 217, 225, 246, 
 
 334, 335
 
 344 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Unconscious (continued), 
 
 language, 20, 66 
 
 meaning, 13, 14, 40 
 
 nature, 15, 16 
 Unification wit, 120 121 
 
 Vacations, psychology of, 328, 
 
 329 
 Van Dyke, no 
 Van Buren, 288 
 "Verbigerations," in dementia 
 
 prsecox, 256 
 Virchow, 3, 207 
 Vocations, selections of, 313- 
 
 333, 336 
 Voyeur, 128, 323 
 
 Wallace, Doctor, 144 
 Wanke, 307 
 .Washington, 288 
 Weber-Fechner law, 145 
 "Werthers Leiden," 310, 311 
 "White-lie," 200, 201 
 Wish, 
 
 in artistic productions, 308-310, 
 336 
 
 in collections, 336 
 
 in dreams, 147-150, 1 53-155, 1S8, 
 159, 163-167, 171, 184, 192, 
 
 193, 199, 210, 211, 226, 228- 
 
 230, 234, 244-246, 252, 335, 
 
 336 
 in fairy tales, 296-300, 308, 336 
 in insanity, 37, 38 
 in lying, 200, 207, 208 
 
 Wish (continued), 
 in psychopathological actions, 
 
 335 
 in selections of vocation, 319, 
 
 324, 336 
 in wit, 335 
 Wit, 
 
 animism, 122 
 automatism, 119, 120 
 condensation, 115-117 
 displacement, 117-119 
 distortion, 157 
 differences between dream an 
 
 137, 138 
 ellipsis, 122 
 harmless, 126, 133 
 nonsense, 122 
 outdoing, 124, 125 
 purposeful, 125-137 
 representation through oppo- 
 site, 123 
 resemblance between dream 
 
 and, 137 
 sense in nonsense, 123, 124 
 smutty joke, 126-131, 133-135, 
 
 136 
 technique of, 1 13-125 
 tendencies of, 125-138 
 unification, 120, 121 
 wish in, 335 
 through similarity, 125 
 
 "Yoni lingam," 66 
 Youngest child, 289 
 
 Zurich school 13
 
 M
 

 
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