Page - 45 - in Dream Psychology
Image of the Page - 45 -
Text of the Page - 45 -
corresponds to the overcoming of a resistance, she reports further that the day
before she had made a visit to a friend, of whom she is really jealous, because
her husband is always praising this woman so much. Fortunately, this friend is
very lean and thin, and her husband likes well-rounded figures. Now of what
did this lean friend speak? Naturally of her wish to become somewhat stouter.
She also asked my patient: âWhen are you going to invite us again? You
always have such a good table.â Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I may
say to the patient: âIt is just as though you had thought at the time of the
request: âOf course, Iâll invite you, so you can eat yourself fat at my house
and become still more pleasing to my husband. I would rather give no more
suppers.â The dream then tells you that you cannot give a supper, thereby
fulfilling your wish not to contribute anything to the rounding out of your
friendâs figure. The resolution of your husband to refuse invitations to supper
for the sake of getting thin teaches you that one grows fat on the things served
in company.â Now only some conversation is necessary to confirm the
solution. The smoked salmon in the dream has not yet been traced. âHow did
the salmon mentioned in the dream occur to you?â âSmoked salmon is the
favorite dish of this friend,â she answered. I happen to know the lady, and
may corroborate this by saying that she grudges herself the salmon just as
much as my patient grudges herself the caviare. The dream admits of still
another and more exact interpretation, which is necessitated only by a
subordinate circumstance. The two interpretations do not contradict one
another, but rather cover each other and furnish a neat example of the usual
ambiguity of dreams as well as of all other psychopathological formations.
We have seen that at the same time that she dreams of the denial of the wish,
the patient is in reality occupied in securing an unfulfilled wish (the caviare
sandwiches). Her friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get fatter, and
it would not surprise us if our lady had dreamt that the wish of the friend was
not being fulfilled. For it is her own wish that a wish of her friendâsâfor
increase in weightâshould not be fulfilled. Instead of this, however, she
dreams that one of her own wishes is not fulfilled. The dream becomes
capable of a new interpretation, if in the dream she does not intend herself,
but her friend, if she has put herself in the place of her friend, or, as we may
say, has identified herself with her friend. I think she has actually done this,
and as a sign of this identification she has created an unfulfilled wish in
reality. But what is the meaning of this hysterical identification? To clear this
up a thorough exposition is necessary. Identification is a highly important
factor in the mechanism of hysterical symptoms; by this means patients are
enabled in their symptoms to represent not merely their own experiences, but
the experiences of a great number of other persons, and can suffer, as it were,
for a whole mass of people, and fill all the parts of a drama by means of their
own personalities alone. It will here be objected that this is well-known
45
back to the
book Dream Psychology"
Dream Psychology
- Title
- Dream Psychology
- Author
- Sigmund Freud
- Date
- 1920
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- Size
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Pages
- 114
- Keywords
- Neurology, Neurologie, Träume, Psycholgie, Traum
- Categories
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International
- Medizin
Table of contents
- Introduction 4
- Chapter 1: Dreams have a meaning 9
- Chapter 2: The Dream mechanism 20
- Chapter 3: Why the dream diguises the desire 34
- Chapter 4: Dream analysis 43
- Chapter 5: Sex in dreams 54
- Chapter 6: The Wish in dreams 67
- Chapter 7: The Function of the dream 79
- Chapter 8: The Primary and Secondary process - Regression 89
- Chapter 9: The Unconscious and Consciousness - Reality 104