Dream Psychology

suffice to mention the number." Finally, we have learned from numerous
analyses that the wish in all dreams that have been subject to
distortion has been derived from the unconscious, and has been unable to
come to perception in the waking state. Thus it would appear that all
wishes are of the same value and force for the dream formation.

I am at present unable to prove that the state of affairs is really
different, but I am strongly inclined to assume a more stringent
determination of the dream-wish. Children's dreams leave no doubt that
an unfulfilled wish of the day may be the instigator of the dream. But
we must not forget that it is, after all, the wish of a child, that it
is a wish-feeling of infantile strength only. I have a strong doubt
whether an unfulfilled wish from the day would suffice to create a dream
in an adult. It would rather seem that as we learn to control our
impulses by intellectual activity, we more and more reject as vain the
formation or retention of such intense wishes as are natural to
childhood. In this, indeed, there may be individual variations; some
retain the infantile type of psychic processes longer than others. The
differences are here the same as those found in the gradual decline of
the originally distinct visual imagination.

In general, however, I am of the opinion that unfulfilled wishes of the
day are insufficient to produce a dream in adults. I readily admit that
the wish instigators originating in conscious like contribute towards
the incitement of dreams, but that is probably all. The dream would not
originate if the foreconscious wish were not reinforced from another
source.

That source is the unconscious. I believe that _the conscious wish is a
dream inciter only if it succeeds in arousing a similar unconscious wish
which reinforces it_. Following the suggestions obtained through the
psychoanalysis of the neuroses, I believe that these unconscious wishes
are always active and ready for expression whenever they find an
opportunity to unite themselves with an emotion from conscious life, and
that they transfer their greater intensity to the lesser intensity of
the latter.[1] It may therefore seem that the conscious wish alone has
been realized in a dream; but a slight peculiarity in the formation of
this dream will put us on the track of the powerful helper from the
unconscious. These ever active and, as it were, immortal wishes from the
unconscious recall the legendary Titans who from time immemorial have
borne the ponderous mountains which were once rolled upon them by the
victorious gods, and which even now quiver from time to time from the
convulsions of their mighty limbs; I say that these wishes found in the
repression are of themselves of an infantile origin, as we have learned
from the psychological investigation of the neuroses. I should like,
therefore, to withdraw the opinion previously expressed that it is
unimportant whence the dream-wish originates, and replace it by another,
as follows: _The wish manifested in the dream must be an infantile one_.
In the adult it originates in the Unc., while in the child, where no
separation and censor as yet exist between Forec. and Unc., or where
these are only in the process of formation, it is an unfulfilled and
unrepressed wish from the waking state. I am aware that this conception
cannot be generally demonstrated, but I maintain nevertheless that it
can be frequently demonstrated, even when it was not suspected, and that
it cannot be generally refuted.

The wish-feelings which remain from the conscious waking state are,
therefore, relegated to the background in the dream formation. In the
dream content I shall attribute to them only the part attributed to the
material of actual sensations during sleep. If I now take into account
those other psychic instigations remaining from the waking state which
are not wishes, I shall only adhere to the line mapped out for me by
this train of thought. We may succeed in provisionally terminating the
sum of energy of our waking thoughts by deciding to go to sleep. He is a
good sleeper who can do this; Napoleon I. is reputed to have been a
model of this sort. But we do not always succeed in accomplishing it, or
in accomplishing it perfectly. Unsolved problems, harassing cares,
overwhelming impressions continue the thinking activity even during
sleep, maintaining psychic processes in the system which we have termed
the foreconscious. These mental processes continuing into sleep may be
divided into the following groups: 1, That which has not been terminated
during the day owing to casual prevention; 2, that which has been left
unfinished by temporary paralysis of our mental power, _i.e._ the
unsolved; 3, that which has been rejected and suppressed during the day.
This unites with a powerful group (4) formed by that which has been
excited in our Unc. during the day by the work of the foreconscious.
Finally, we may add group (5) consisting of the indifferent and hence
unsettled impressions of the day.

We should not underrate the psychic intensities introduced into sleep by
these remnants of waking life, especially those emanating from the group
of the unsolved. These excitations surely continue to strive for
expression during the night, and we may assume with equal certainty that
the sleeping state renders impossible the usual continuation of the
excitement in the foreconscious and the termination of the excitement by
its becoming conscious. As far as we can normally become conscious of
our mental processes, even during the night, in so far we are not
asleep. I shall not venture to state what change is produced in the
Forec. system by the sleeping state, but there is no doubt that the
psychological character of sleep is essentially due to the change of
energy in this very system, which also dominates the approach to
motility, which is paralyzed during sleep. In contradistinction to this,
there seems to be nothing in the psychology of the dream to warrant the
assumption that sleep produces any but secondary changes in the
conditions of the Unc. system. Hence, for the nocturnal excitation in
the Force, there remains no other path than that followed by the wish
excitements from the Unc. This excitation must seek reinforcement from
the Unc., and follow the detours of the unconscious excitations. But
what is the relation of the foreconscious day remnants to the dream?
There is no doubt that they penetrate abundantly into the dream, that