Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/343

Rh dream which almost recalls the technique of a rebus. His uncle gives him a kiss in an automobile. He immediately adds the interpretation, which I should never have found: it means Autoerotism. This might have been made as a joke in the waking state.

The dream work often succeeds in representing very awkward material, such as proper names, by means of the forced utilisation of very far-fetched references. In one of my dreams the elder Bruecke ''has given me a task. I compound a preparation, and skim something from it which looks like crumpled tinfoil.'' (More of this later on.) The notion corresponding to this, which was not easy to find, is "stanniol," and now I know that I have in mind the name of the author Stannius, which was borne by a treatise on the nervous system of fishes, which I regarded with awe in my youthful years. The first scientific task which my teacher gave me was actually concerned with the nervous system of a fish—the Ammocœtes. Obviously the latter name could never have been used in a picture puzzle.

I shall not omit here to insert a dream having a curious content, which is also remarkable as a child's dream, and which is very easily explained by the analysis. A lady relates: "I can remember that when I was a child I repeatedly dreamed, that the dear Lord had a pointed paper hat on his head. They used to make me wear such a hat at table very often, so that I might not be able to look at the plates of the other children and see how much they had received of a particular dish. Since I have learned that God is omniscient, the dream signifies that I know everything in spite of the hat which I am made to wear."

Wherein the dream work consists, and how it manages its material, the dream thoughts, can be shown in a very instructive manner from the numbers and calculations which occur in dreams. Moreover, numbers in dreams are regarded as of especial significance by superstition. I shall therefore give a few more examples of this kind from my own collection.

I. The following is taken from the dream of a lady shortly before the close of her treatment:

She wants to pay for something or other; her daughter takes 3 florins and 65 kreuzer from her pocket-book; but