Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/137

Rh Here, as before, it is only the wish that the case may be as the dream expresses it. The statement in which my wish is realised sounds less absurd in the second dream than in the first; it is made here with a more skilful utilisation of facts as points of attachment, something like a well-constructed slander, where "there is something in it." For my friend R. had at that time the vote of a professor from the department against him, and my friend N. had himself unsuspectingly furnished me with the material for slander. Nevertheless, I repeat, the dream seems to me to require further elucidation.

I remember now that the dream contains still another portion which so far our interpretation has not taken into account. After it occurs to me that my friend R. is my uncle, I feel great affection for him. To whom does this feeling belong? For my uncle Joseph, of course, I have never had any feelings of affection. For years my friend R. has been beloved and dear to me; but if I were to go to him and express my feelings for him in terms which came anywhere near corresponding to the degree of affection in the dream, he would doubtless be surprised. My affection for him seems untrue and exaggerated, something like my opinion of his psychic qualities, which I express by fusing his personality with that of my uncle; but it is exaggerated in an opposite sense. But now a new state of affairs becomes evident to me. The affection in the dream does not belong to the hidden content, to the thoughts behind the dream; it stands in opposition to this content; it is calculated to hide the information which interpretation may bring. Probably this is its very purpose. I recall with what resistance I applied myself to the work of interpretation, how long I tried to postpone it, and how I declared the dream to be sheer nonsense. I know from my psychoanalytical treatments how such condemnation is to be interpreted. It has no value as affording information, but only as the registration of an affect. If my little daughter does not like an apple which is offered her, she asserts that the apple has a bitter taste, without even having tasted it. If my patients act like the little girl, I know that it is a question of a notion which they want to suppress. The same applies to my dream. I do not want to interpret it because it contains something to which I object. After the