Chapter 12 Eleventh lecture on dream work

If you have understood the censorship and symbolism of dreams, most of them can be interpreted, although you have not yet fully understood their disguise.There are two methods that you can apply, and these two methods are complementary to each other: one is to arouse the association of the dreamer until the original hidden thought can be obtained from the substitute of the latent thought; the other is to use your own knowledge to supplement The meaning of the symbol in the dream.As for the difficulties caused by this, please wait until later. We have previously studied the relationship between dream elements and latent thoughts, but we were not fully prepared at that time, so we would like to discuss it again now.There are four kinds of relationships that we have mentioned: 1. Parts represent the whole; 2. Metaphors; 3. Symbols; 4. Images.It is now possible to extend the scope of the discussion to a comparative study of the manifest dream as a whole and the latent dream derived from the interpretation.

I hope you will never confuse manifest dreams with latent thoughts.If you could distinguish between the two, you would understand dreams more than most readers of my Interpretation of Dreams.But the following layer seems to need to be repeated: that is, the process of changing latent dreams into manifest dreams is called dream-work; conversely, the process of going back from manifest dreams to latent thoughts is our dream-interpretation work; The purpose of dream-interpretation is therefore to overthrow the dream-work.In the case of children's dreams, although the fulfillment of their wishes is evident, there is also a certain activity in the dream-work, since daytime wishes often enter dreams and become reality, and thoughts often become visual images.There is no need for interpretation of this dream; it is enough for us to retrace the course of the two changes.As for other types of dreams, the dream work is more complicated, so it is called dream disguise to show the difference.For disguised dreams, we have to do the work of interpretation in order to restore the original hidden idea of ​​​​the dream.

Since I have had the opportunity to compare various dream interpretations, I can now detail how the dream-work deals with the latent dream-thought material.However, please do not place too much hope: you must pay attention to this passage. The first achievement of dream-work is compression.The so-called compression means that the content of the manifest dream is simpler than that of the latent thoughts, as if it is an abbreviation of the latent thoughts.Uncompressed dreams are possible, but as a rule compression is always necessary, and sometimes to a great extent.As for the effect opposite to compression, in other words, the scope of manifest dreams is larger than that of latent thoughts, or the content of manifest dreams is richer than latent dreams, there is absolutely no such thing.There are several methods of compression: (1) the complete elimination of certain latent elements; (2) of the many complexes of latent dreams, only one fragment intrudes into manifest dreams; Blended into one.

If you like, you can keep the word "compression" to refer to the third method above, and examples of this are not difficult to come up with.Even in your own dreams you may get examples of the compression of "many into one".This mixed image has the appearance of A, the clothes of B, and the occupation of C, but you always know that he is D.The attributes shared by the four are therefore particularly striking.Such mixed images are also possible with respect to objects or places, as long as they have something in common to be at the disposal of the latent dream.Thus, a new unstable concept seems to be formed, with this common attribute as the core.When the compressed parts are mixed with each other, a blurred picture is often formed, as if several images were projected simultaneously on a photosensitive film.

The formation of this mixed image should occupy a very important place in the dream-work, because we can prove that the common properties required for the formation of the mixed image did not exist at first, but were made on purpose, for example, by choosing a A special language to express a thought.We have seen instances of such compression or mixing before; they are the cause of tongue slips.You always remember the young man who said to "send off" a lady beleidigen for "insult" and begleiten for "send" and the combination is an instance of begleitdigen.Some words that should be harmonious are also compressed because of this.Other than that, we can say that compression is uncommon.Of course, there are also many fantasies, which are indeed equivalent to the phenomenon of several people merging into one in dreams, because there are also many elements that do not belong to each other in fact, but merge into one in fantasy, such as the half-man and half-horse figure in ancient mythology. Drawings of monsters and nonsensical animals or "brooklings", etc.In fact, the so-called "created" fantasy does not invent new things, but only recombines various materials.As regards the progress of the dream-work, the following is peculiar: the material of the dream-work contains some unpleasant and repellent thoughts, but these thoughts are presented in the correct form.The dream-work transforms these thoughts into another form, and it is strange that in this process of translation into another word or language a hybrid method is employed.Elsewhere, the translator has to preserve all the differences in the original text, especially the differences between similar things; as for the dream-work, it uses a double entendre to express two thoughts in a humorous way, thus consolidating two different thoughts. And for one.This feature, which we cannot expect to grasp immediately, nevertheless occupies a very important place in our interpretation of the dream-work.

Although the compression is sufficient to obscure the dream, it does not make us feel the power of the censorship of the dream.We may think that the compression is due to mechanical or economic reasons. Translation: simplification, that is, saving labor, so it is "economical", but, in any case, the role of inspection is involved. The results of compression are sometimes unexpected: two quite different latent thoughts are often mixed into one manifest dream, so that we seem to have a somewhat satisfactory interpretation of the dream, but a second possible meaning is ignored. Moreover, compression has another effect on the relationship between the manifest dream and the latent dream, that is, the relationship between the elements of the two is very complicated; because of the intertwined results, one obvious element represents several latent elements at the same time, and one Hidden thoughts can be transformed into several obvious elements.When a dream is interpreted, we again see that the associations of a distinct element probably do not appear sequentially; if we want it to appear, we often have to wait until the whole dream has been interpreted.

The dream-work is thus a representation of the dream thoughts in a particular fashion; it is neither a word-by-word, or a symbol-by-symbol translation; nor is it a selective action with rules to follow, such as the retention of only words. Consonant, and its vowel is deleted; nor is it a representative function that a certain element is often used to represent several other elements.It takes a very different and more complex approach. The second achievement of the dream-work is displacement.Fortunately, there is no new problem here; we know that it is all the work of the dream censorship.There are two ways of displacement: one is that a latent element is not represented by a part of itself, but is replaced by something less related, and its nature is slightly close to metaphor; Placed on top of another unimportant element, the center of gravity of the dream is shifted, so the dream seems to take on a strange shape.

When we are awake, we often use metaphors to replace the original meaning, but there is an important difference from the metaphors in dreams; the metaphors used during awakening are easy to understand, and the content of the substitutes is also quite related to the original meaning.Witty sarcasm also often employs metaphors, when associations of content are omitted and superficial associations which are less common are substituted.For example, or take homonyms, or take the meaning of puns.Still, the association must be comprehensible: if the real meaning of the metaphor is not easily discernible, the original meaning of the joke will be completely lost.As for the metaphor used in dreams, there are no such restrictions. Its relationship with the original meaning is shallow and distant, so it is not easy to understand; feeling.The censorship of dreams only serves its purpose if we cannot go back from the metaphor to the original meaning.

If our purpose is to express ideas, a shift of the center of gravity is not a reasonable solution, although we do use it now and then for humorous effect in our waking hours.To illustrate this layer, the following story may be used as an example.A coppersmith in a certain village committed a capital crime, and the court ruled him guilty.But there is only one coppersmith in the village, but three tailors.Therefore the coppersmith cannot die, but a tailor replaces his death. The third achievement of the dream-work is the most interesting from a psychological point of view.The method is to turn thoughts into visualimages.We must of course be aware that not all of the thoughts in dreams are transformed in this way, that many thoughts retain their original shape and appear as thoughts or knowledge in manifest dreams; and that transformation into visions is not the only possible method of thought transformation.But it is the main characteristic of dreams, and this part of the dream-work varies very little except in one other case.And the element of visions as dreams is familiar to all of us.

This is obviously not an easy way to do it.If you want to understand this difficulty, you can imagine that you want to illustrate a political essay in a newspaper, and you must try to change the words into pictures.It is not difficult to represent all the concrete people and objects in the text with pictures, and it can be represented more completely; but if you want to change all abstract words into pictures, and change the words indicating various thought relations, such as relational words and conjunctions, etc. If everything becomes a picture, the difficulty will immediately arise.As far as abstract characters are concerned, you may use various methods, such as first translating the content of the article into other characters. These characters may be relatively rare, but their root components are more specific, so it is easier to make such an appearance possible.From this, you may be able to think of such a fact: the abstract words are originally concrete, but their concrete original meaning has gradually lost that's all.Therefore, whenever possible, you will inevitably go back to the original specific meaning of these words.For example, the actual meaning of "possessing" a thing is "sitting upon it" possesses = potis ten sedeo "siting upon".This is how the dream-work works.In such a case, it is certainly not easy for you to demand precise representations, nor to complain that the dream-work would be difficult to replace by pictorial elements.For example, reduce the concept of breaking the marriage contract to other kinds of damage, such as broken arms or legs, to overcome the difficulty of turning words into pictures.

Some words expressing thought relations, such as "because", "therefore", "however", etc., are not so easy for you to represent with diagrams, so these parts have to be omitted.In the same way, the content of the dream-thoughts is transformed by the dream-work into materials including objects and activities.Perhaps you would be satisfied if you could express by more refined images those relations which cannot be described in pictures.In the same way, the dream-work succeeds in expressing most of the latent thoughts by means of the formal characteristics of the manifest dream, such as its clarity or obscurity, and its division into different parts.The number of parts into which a dream is divided generally corresponds to the number of dream themes or rising and falling latent thoughts.A short initial dream often has a leading or causal relationship with the later detailed main dream.Changes in the dream situation are representative of secondary latent thoughts.Therefore, the form of the dream is also important, which itself requires interpretation.Several dreams in one night often have only one meaning, and represent the dreamer's efforts to bring an ever-increasing stimulus into full control.And in a single dream a particularly difficult element may be represented by several symbols. If we continue to compare latent thoughts and manifest dreams, we will find unexpected things on either side, and even the absurd facts in dreams have their own significance; on this point, medical dream interpretation and psychoanalysis The difference in the interpretation of dreams by the authors is more pronounced than before.From the physician's point of view, a dream is absurd because of the temporary cessation of psychic activity during the dream; from our point of view, it is absurd because the underlying thought of the dream contains the accusation: "It is absurd." Opinion.A good example is the purchase of three tickets for one and a half florins to the theater as mentioned above; the opinion expressed is: "It is absurd to marry so early." When we interpret dreams, we find that dreamers often doubt whether a certain element has entered the dream or whether it is this element and not other elements.Generally speaking, there is indeed no equivalent of these doubts in the latent thoughts; they arise entirely from censorship, from the incompleteness of repression. The way in which the dream-work deals with opposing ideas in latent dreams is one of the most surprising discoveries we have made.We have already seen that the coherent points of material in the latent dream are condensed into one in the manifest dream.Contrary thoughts, however, are treated in the same way as identical thoughts, and in particular are expressed with the same manifest dream elements.If there are positive and negative elements in the manifest dream, there are three kinds of meanings they represent: one represents only itself; the other represents the opposite meaning; and the third represents both positive and negative meanings.Where to go when interpreting dreams must depend on the context.So there is no representative of the word "no" in the dream, at least there are no words that are not puns. This strange phenomenon of the dream-work has fortunately an analogy in the development of language.Linguists often claim that in the oldest language, all opposite words such as strength, light and shade, size, etc., are expressed by the same root. This is called the anti-thetical sense of primal words [anti-thetical sense of primal words].For example, the ancient Egyptian word "ken" was originally used to express "strong" and "weak".When speaking, because of the difference in tone and posture, the ambiguous characters are not misunderstood; when writing, add a so-called "determinant", that is, add a picture, such as after "ken", draw a person standing upright with chest Then its meaning is "strong", if you draw a kneeling person, its meaning is "weak".It was only in later generations that the dichotomous meanings of the same original text expressed two different meanings due to slight changes in the root.Therefore, the word "ken" with the original meaning of "strong" - "weak" gives birth to the characters "ken" [meaning "strong"] and "Kan" [meaning "weak"].This is not only the case with the oldest languages, but even the more recent ones, or even the languages ​​that are still alive today, still retain many early ambiguous characters at the latest stage of development.Please cite an example from the work of C. Abel in 1884 as follows: In Latin there are the following ambiguous words: altus = high or deep; sacer = holy or evil. Examples of root changes are as follows: clamare = shout; clam = quietly, silently, secretly; siccus = dry; succus = juice. In German: Stimme = voice; stumm = dumb. More examples are available if you compare closely related languages: English: lock = closed; German: Loch = hole, hole, Lucke = crack. English cleave German kleben = sticking, attaching. The English "with0ut" used to have both positive and negative meanings, but now it is only used to express negative meanings.But: "with" not only means "accompanying", but also means "deprivation".You can understand it by looking at the words "withdraW" [cancel] and "withhold" [block].The word wieder in German can be compared. Another feature of the dream-work can also be found in the development of language.In ancient Egyptian and other later languages, the positions of sounds were shifted, one behind the other, resulting in different words for the same basic idea.English German all this kind of parallel, for example: Topfpot-pot [pot]; Boat-tub [barrel]; Hurry [hurry]-Ruhe rest [rest]; Balkenbeam [beam]-Klobenclub [stick]; wait-tuwcntoWait [wait]. Parallels between Latin and German, for example: capere - packentoseize [capture]; ren-Nierekidney [kidney]. There are many ways in which the dream work transforms words and syllables.The inversion of meaning, or the substitution of opposite words for each other, is something we are already familiar with.But in addition to this, there is an inversion of the situation or the inversion of the relationship in the dream, as if in a chaotic world.A hunter chasing a rabbit often becomes a rabbit chasing a hunter in a dream.And the sequence of things is also reversed.So in the dream it appears as effect followed by cause, reminding us of plays in third-rate theatres, in which the leading actor first falls to the ground and dies, and then the gunshot that kills him begins to fire from the hatchback.Sometimes the positions of the elements in a dream are completely reversed, so that when interpreting a dream, it makes sense to place the last element first and the first element last.You remember that this is also true of the symbolism of dreams, for example, falling into the water and coming out of the water are both childbirth or birth, and climbing a ladder is the same as going down a ladder.Expressing hidden thoughts without restriction is conducive to the disguise of dreams. These features of dream-work may be called primitive archaic.They are attached to the original expression of the language, and they are no less difficult to understand than the original language. This issue will be discussed later. Please now discuss other aspects of this issue.What the dream-work aims to accomplish is obviously to transform latent thoughts into forms of perception, especially visual images.Our thoughts originally take the form of this perception.Its earliest materials and the first stage of its development are sensory impressions, or more precisely, the "memory pictures" of these sensory impressions.It was not until later that words were attached to this kind of picture, and connected to form thoughts.Therefore, the dream-work makes our thoughts have a regressive process, and returns to the old path of development; therefore, in this regressive process, all new creatures when memory pictures develop and become thoughts have to follow. and disappear. This is the meaning of the dream-work.Once we understand the course of the dream-work, our interest in manifest dreams has to take a backseat.However, I still want to say something about manifest dreams, because in dreams we are directly aware of only manifest dreams. It is natural that manifest dreams have lost their importance in our eyes.It doesn't matter to us whether it is solemnly combined or broken up into disconnected pictures.Although the surface of the dream is very meaningful, we know that the surface of the dream is formed by the disguise of the dream, and has no organic connection with the content of the dream. It seems that the facade of an Italian church is not enough to infer the general structure of it. and base design.Sometimes the appearance of the dream also has a meaning, expressing nakedly the gist of the latent thought.But to know this, we must wait until we understand the extent of its disguise through dream interpretation.Sometimes two components seem to be closely related, which may also bring about similar doubts; that is, from this connection, although it can be inferred that a certain component in latent dreams has a similar relationship, we are sometimes convinced that the related components in latent thoughts After falling into a dream, it is far away. Roughly speaking, we cannot interpret this part of the manifest dream in terms of other parts of the manifest dream, as if the dream were coherent and consistent.As far as most dreams are concerned, its structure is no different from that of Breccia stone. Various stone flakes are glued to each other with cement, so that the boundaries on the surface are different from the original boundaries of the stones inside.This mechanism of the dream-work, called secondary elaboration, aims at bringing together the immediate products of the dream-work into a coherent whole; , and in order to achieve this goal, so interlacing is omnipresent. We must not, however, exaggerate too much the possible achievements of the dream-work.Its activities are also limited to the four mentioned in this article, namely, the compression, displacement, imagery and embellishment of dreams.In addition, there is no other ability.All manifestations of judgment, criticism, surprise, or deductive reasoning in the dream are not due to the dream-work, and are seldom an expression of later recollections of the dream; Invade the manifest dream.Also, conversations in dreams are not created by dream work. Except for a few exceptions, they are all imitations and supplements of what the dreamer has heard or said before, which enter into latent thoughts and become the material or inducement of dreams.The calculation of numbers is also not part of the dream-work. If there are calculations in manifest dreams, they are usually only a mixture of numbers, or estimates that are not in the name, or are only copies of certain calculations in latent thoughts.Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that our interest in the dream-work soon turns to the latent thoughts which manifest themselves in disguised forms in manifest dreams.But we should not, in our theoretical investigations, divert our interest so far that we replace the whole dream by latent thoughts, and add to the latter the remarks which are proper to the former.It is not surprising that the results of psychoanalysis have been misused to confuse the two.We need to know that the word "dream" can only be used for the products of the dream-work, or only for the way in which latent thoughts have been processed by the dream-work. This work is unique; it is unique in spiritual life.The so-called compression, displacement, and transformation of thought into reductive images are all novel inventions and achievements of our psychoanalysis.You will also know the relationship of psychoanalysis to other studies, especially those concerning the development of language and thought, from the parallel phenomenon of the dream-work.In the future you will understand the importance of this discovery even more when you understand that the mechanism of the dream-work is a model of neurotic symptoms. I know that we are not yet fully aware of the new psychological contributions of the study of dreams.We just want to make the following two points: first, this kind of research can be used to prove the existence of subconscious mental activities-or dream thoughts; second, the results of dream interpretation can let us know the scope of the subconscious life of the mind Out of our expectations. But now it is time to cite a few short dreams to illustrate the points which have been made.