Part 94

If I do not know behind which of the persons which occur in the dream I am to look for my ego, I observe the following rule: That person in the dream who is subject to an emotion which I experience while asleep, is the one that conceals my ego.

Footnote DW:

The hysterical attack sometimes uses the same device—the inversion of time-relations—for the purpose of concealing its meaning from the spectator. The attack of a hysterical girl, for example, consists in enacting a little romance, which she has unconsciously fancied in connection with an encounter in the street car. A man, attracted by the beauty of her foot, addresses her while she is reading, whereupon she goes with him and experiences a stormy love scene. Her attack begins with the representation of this scene in writhing movements of the body (accompanied by motions of the lips to signify kissing, entwining of the arms for embraces), whereupon she hurries into another room, sits down in a chair, lifts her skirt in order to show her foot, acts as though she were about to read a book, and speaks to me (answers me).

Footnote DX:

Accompanying hysterical symptoms: Failure to menstruate and profound depression, which was the chief ailment of the patient.

Footnote DY:

A reference to a childhood experience is after complete analysis shown to exist by the following intermediaries: “The Moor has done his duty, the Moor may go.” And then follows the waggish question: “How old is the Moor when he has done his duty? One year. Then he may go.” (It is said that I came into the world with so much black curly hair that my young mother declared me to be a Moor.) The circumstance that I do not find my hat is an experience of the day which has been turned to account with various significations. Our servant, who is a genius at stowing away things, had hidden the hat. A suppression of sad thoughts about death is also concealed behind the conclusion of the dream: “I have not nearly done my duty yet; I may not go yet.” Birth and death, as in the dream that occurred shortly before about Goethe and the paralytic (p. 345).

Footnote DZ:

Cf. Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 2nd edit. 1912, and “word-bridges,” in the solutions of neurotic symptoms.

Footnote EA:

In general it is doubtful in the interpretation of every element of the dream whether it—

(a) is to be regarded as having a negative or a positive sense (relation of opposition);

(b) is to be interpreted historically (as a reminiscence);

(c) is symbolic; or whether

(d) its valuation is to be based upon the sound of its verbal expression.

In spite of this manifold signification, it may be said that the representation of the dream activity does not impose upon the translator any greater difficulties than the ancient writers of hieroglyphics imposed upon their readers.

Footnote EB:

For the interpretation of this preliminary dream, which is to be regarded as “casual,” see p. 292.

Footnote EC:

Her career.

Footnote ED:

High birth, the wish contrast to the preliminary dream.

Footnote EE:

A composite image, which unites two localities, the so-called garret (German Boden—floor, garret) of her father’s house, in which she played with her brother, the object of her later fancies, and the garden of a malicious uncle, who used to tease her.

Footnote EF:

Wish contrast to an actual memory of her uncle’s garden, to the effect that she used to expose herself while she was asleep.

Footnote EG:

Just as the angel bears a lily stem in the Annunciation.