Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/218

200 mechanism. For anxiety in dreams may be of a psychoneurotic nature, or it may originate in psychosexual excitements, in which case the anxiety corresponds to a repressed libido. Then this anxiety as well as the whole anxiety dream has the significance of a neurotic symptom, and we are at the dividing-line where the wish-fulfilling tendency of dreams disappears. But in other anxiety-dreams the feeling of anxiety comes from somatic sources (for instance in the case of persons suffering from pulmonary or heart trouble, where there is occasional difficulty in getting breath), and then it is used to aid those energetically suppressed wishes in attaining fulfilment in the form of a dream, the dreaming of which from psychic motives would have resulted in the same release of fear. It is not difficult to unite these two apparently discrepant cases. Of two psychic formations, an emotional inclination and an ideal content, which are intimately connected, the one, which is presented as actual, supports the other in the dream; now anxiety of somatic origin supports the suppressed presentation content, now the ideal content, which is freed from suppression, and which proceeds with the impetus given by sexual emotion, assists the discharge of anxiety. Of the one case it may be said that an emotion of somatic origin is psychically interpreted; in the other case everything is of psychic origin but the content which has been suppressed is easily replaced by a somatic interpretation which is suited to anxiety. The difficulties which lie in the way of understanding all this have little to do with the dream; they are due to the fact that in discussing these points we are touching upon the problems of the development of anxiety and of repression.

Undoubtedly the aggregate of bodily feelings is to be included among the commanding dream stimuli which originate internally. Not that it is able to furnish the dream content, but it forces the dream thoughts to make a choice from the material destined to serve the purpose of representation in the dream content; it does this by putting within easy reach that part of the material which is suited to its own character, while withholding the other. Moreover this general feeling, which is left over from the day, is probably connected with the psychic remnants which are significant for the dream.