Dream Psychology

never fall into disuse; they conduct the discharge of the exciting
process as often as it becomes endowed with unconscious excitement To
speak metaphorically they suffer the same form of annihilation as the
shades of the lower region in the _Odyssey_, who awoke to new life the
moment they drank blood. The processes depending on the foreconscious
system are destructible in a different way. The psychotherapy of the
neuroses is based on this difference.

[2] Le Lorrain justly extols the wish-fulfilment of the dream: "Sans
fatigue serieuse, sans etre oblige de recourir a cette lutte opinatre et
longue qui use et corrode les jouissances poursuivies."

[3] This idea has been borrowed from _The Theory of Sleep_ by Liebault,
who revived hypnotic investigation in our days. (_Du Sommeil provoque_,
etc.; Paris, 1889.)




VII

THE FUNCTION OF THE DREAM


Since we know that the foreconscious is suspended during the night by
the wish to sleep, we can proceed to an intelligent investigation of the
dream process. But let us first sum up the knowledge of this process
already gained. We have shown that the waking activity leaves day
remnants from which the sum of energy cannot be entirely removed; or the
waking activity revives during the day one of the unconscious wishes; or
both conditions occur simultaneously; we have already discovered the
many variations that may take place. The unconscious wish has already
made its way to the day remnants, either during the day or at any rate
with the beginning of sleep, and has effected a transference to it. This
produces a wish transferred to the recent material, or the suppressed
recent wish comes to life again through a reinforcement from the
unconscious. This wish now endeavors to make its way to consciousness on
the normal path of the mental processes through the foreconscious, to
which indeed it belongs through one of its constituent elements. It is
confronted, however, by the censor, which is still active, and to the
influence of which it now succumbs. It now takes on the distortion for
which the way has already been paved by its transference to the recent
material. Thus far it is in the way of becoming something resembling an
obsession, delusion, or the like, _i.e._ a thought reinforced by a
transference and distorted in expression by the censor. But its further
progress is now checked through the dormant state of the foreconscious;
this system has apparently protected itself against invasion by
diminishing its excitements. The dream process, therefore, takes the
regressive course, which has just been opened by the peculiarity of the
sleeping state, and thereby follows the attraction exerted on it by the
memory groups, which themselves exist in part only as visual energy not
yet translated into terms of the later systems. On its way to regression
the dream takes on the form of dramatization. The subject of compression
will be discussed later. The dream process has now terminated the second
part of its repeatedly impeded course. The first part expended itself
progressively from the unconscious scenes or phantasies to the
foreconscious, while the second part gravitates from the advent of the
censor back to the perceptions. But when the dream process becomes a
content of perception it has, so to speak, eluded the obstacle set up in
the Forec. by the censor and by the sleeping state. It succeeds in
drawing attention to itself and in being noticed by consciousness. For
consciousness, which means to us a sensory organ for the reception of
psychic qualities, may receive stimuli from two sources--first, from the
periphery of the entire apparatus, viz. from the perception system, and,
secondly, from the pleasure and pain stimuli, which constitute the sole
psychic quality produced in the transformation of energy within the
apparatus. All other processes in the system, even those in the
foreconscious, are devoid of any psychic quality, and are therefore not
objects of consciousness inasmuch as they do not furnish pleasure or
pain for perception. We shall have to assume that those liberations of
pleasure and pain automatically regulate the outlet of the occupation
processes. But in order to make possible more delicate functions, it was
later found necessary to render the course of the presentations more
independent of the manifestations of pain. To accomplish this the Forec.
system needed some qualities of its own which could attract
consciousness, and most probably received them through the connection of
the foreconscious processes with the memory system of the signs of
speech, which is not devoid of qualities. Through the qualities of this
system, consciousness, which had hitherto been a sensory organ only for
the perceptions, now becomes also a sensory organ for a part of our
mental processes. Thus we have now, as it were, two sensory surfaces,
one directed to perceptions and the other to the foreconscious mental
processes.

I must assume that the sensory surface of consciousness devoted to the
Forec. is rendered less excitable by sleep than that directed to the
P-systems. The giving up of interest for the nocturnal mental processes
is indeed purposeful. Nothing is to disturb the mind; the Forec. wants
to sleep. But once the dream becomes a perception, it is then capable of
exciting consciousness through the qualities thus gained. The sensory
stimulus accomplishes what it was really destined for, namely, it
directs a part of the energy at the disposal of the Forec. in the form
of attention upon the stimulant. We must, therefore, admit that the
dream invariably awakens us, that is, it puts into activity a part of
the dormant force of the Forec. This force imparts to the dream that
influence which we have designated as secondary elaboration for the sake
of connection and comprehensibility. This means that the dream is
treated by it like any other content of perception; it is subjected to
the same ideas of expectation, as far at least as the material admits.
As far as the direction is concerned in this third part of the dream, it