Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/337

Rh painful analysis, for which the investigating power and the wit of the interpreter of the dream alone will not suffice, but the industrious co-operation of the dreamer is indispensable.

Still greater difficulties than are created by the presentation of abstract thoughts are met when the dream attempts to present in a concrete way the thought relations of the single dream- thoughts. It is Freud's valuable service to have succeeded in making it possible to discover the whole of the hidden formal peculiarities of the articulation of the dream, with which the dream attempts to present logical relations. Logical relations between two dream elements with respect to the dreamthoughts which are hidden behind them, are presented in the simplest case by temporal, spatial proximity, or by a fusion of the features of the dream.

The dream lacks a means of presentation of causal connection, of the either-or relation of conditions, and so forth, so that all these relations are brought to presentation in a very insufficient way by means of a temporal sequence of the dream elements. From this fact arise many embarrassments for the interpreter of dreams, and often only the communications of the dreamer can extricate him. But much may be guessed. For example, if a dream picture changes to another, we can divine behind this, cause and effect; but this connection the dream often presents by two completely separated dreams, one of which signifies the cause, the other the effect. Even in the presentation of a simple negative the dream can succeed only with great difficulty, so that as we know from Freud we can never tell in advance whether the dream thought is to be interpreted in a positive or a negative way. Considering the complexities of our mental organism it is only too easily seen that affirmation and negation of the same thoughts and feelingcomplexes is to be met with in the dream thoughts side by side, or, rather in succession. It may be taken as a sign of displeasure and scorn when anything in a dream is presented in a reversed form, or when the truth is presented very openly and in a striking way. The feeling of inhibition, which is so common, signifies a conflict of the will, the struggle of opposing motives.

Now in spite of the lack of all logical relations in the change of the dream thoughts into the manifest dream, the latter often seems to be possessed of sense and to be correlated. When this is the case, it may result from one of two causes. We may be concerned on the one hand with a dreamphantasy, that is, with the reproduction of fancies which have grown up in the waking life, articles read in books or journals, fragments of romances or bits of conversation spoken or heard by the person himself. A deeper and more general –10