Dream Psychology

no meaning or are unimportant. It will be at once noticed that it is
this self-criticism which prevented the patient from imparting the
ideas, which had indeed already excluded them from consciousness. If the
patient can be induced to abandon this self-criticism and to pursue the
trains of thought which are yielded by concentrating the attention, most
significant matter will be obtained, matter which will be presently seen
to be clearly linked to the morbid idea in question. Its connection with
other ideas will be manifest, and later on will permit the replacement
of the morbid idea by a fresh one, which is perfectly adapted to
psychical continuity.

This is not the place to examine thoroughly the hypothesis upon which
this experiment rests, or the deductions which follow from its
invariable success. It must suffice to state that we obtain matter
enough for the resolution of every morbid idea if we especially direct
our attention to the _unbidden_ associations _which disturb our
thoughts_--those which are otherwise put aside by the critic as
worthless refuse. If the procedure is exercised on oneself, the best
plan of helping the experiment is to write down at once all one's first
indistinct fancies.

I will now point out where this method leads when I apply it to the
examination of dreams. Any dream could be made use of in this way. From
certain motives I, however, choose a dream of my own, which appears
confused and meaningless to my memory, and one which has the advantage
of brevity. Probably my dream of last night satisfies the requirements.
Its content, fixed immediately after awakening, runs as follows:

_"Company; at table or table d'hote.... Spinach is served. Mrs. E.L.,
sitting next to me, gives me her undivided attention, and places her
hand familiarly upon my knee. In defence I remove her hand. Then she
says: 'But you have always had such beautiful eyes.'.... I then
distinctly see something like two eyes as a sketch or as the contour of
a spectacle lens...."_

This is the whole dream, or, at all events, all that I can remember. It
appears to me not only obscure and meaningless, but more especially odd.
Mrs. E.L. is a person with whom I am scarcely on visiting terms, nor to
my knowledge have I ever desired any more cordial relationship. I have
not seen her for a long time, and do not think there was any mention of
her recently. No emotion whatever accompanied the dream process.

Reflecting upon this dream does not make it a bit clearer to my mind. I
will now, however, present the ideas, without premeditation and without
criticism, which introspection yielded. I soon notice that it is an
advantage to break up the dream into its elements, and to search out the
ideas which link themselves to each fragment.

_Company; at table or table d'hote._ The recollection of the slight
event with which the evening of yesterday ended is at once called up. I
left a small party in the company of a friend, who offered to drive me
home in his cab. "I prefer a taxi," he said; "that gives one such a
pleasant occupation; there is always something to look at." When we were
in the cab, and the cab-driver turned the disc so that the first sixty
hellers were visible, I continued the jest. "We have hardly got in and
we already owe sixty hellers. The taxi always reminds me of the table
d'hote. It makes me avaricious and selfish by continuously reminding me
of my debt. It seems to me to mount up too quickly, and I am always
afraid that I shall be at a disadvantage, just as I cannot resist at
table d'hote the comical fear that I am getting too little, that I must
look after myself." In far-fetched connection with this I quote:

  "To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
  To guilt ye let us heedless go."

Another idea about the table d'hote. A few weeks ago I was very cross
with my dear wife at the dinner-table at a Tyrolese health resort,
because she was not sufficiently reserved with some neighbors with whom
I wished to have absolutely nothing to do. I begged her to occupy
herself rather with me than with the strangers. That is just as if I had
_been at a disadvantage at the table d'hote_. The contrast between the
behavior of my wife at the table and that of Mrs. E.L. in the dream now
strikes me: _"Addresses herself entirely to me."_

Further, I now notice that the dream is the reproduction of a little
scene which transpired between my wife and myself when I was secretly
courting her. The caressing under cover of the tablecloth was an answer
to a wooer's passionate letter. In the dream, however, my wife is
replaced by the unfamiliar E.L.

Mrs. E.L. is the daughter of a man to whom I _owed money_! I cannot help
noticing that here there is revealed an unsuspected connection between
the dream content and my thoughts. If the chain of associations be
followed up which proceeds from one element of the dream one is soon led
back to another of its elements. The thoughts evoked by the dream stir
up associations which were not noticeable in the dream itself.

Is it not customary, when some one expects others to look after his
interests without any advantage to themselves, to ask the innocent
question satirically: "Do you think this will be done _for the sake of
your beautiful eyes_?" Hence Mrs. E.L.'s speech in the dream. "You have
always had such beautiful eyes," means nothing but "people always do
everything to you for love of you; you have had _everything for
nothing_." The contrary is, of course, the truth; I have always paid
dearly for whatever kindness others have shown me. Still, the fact that
_I had a ride for nothing_ yesterday when my friend drove me home in his
cab must have made an impression upon me.

In any case, the friend whose guests we were yesterday has often made me
his debtor. Recently I allowed an opportunity of requiting him to go by.