Page:Freud - The interpretation of dreams.djvu/374

356 material, or it may serve as a logical connective in a series of dream thoughts. In any case an inference in the dream represents an inference in the dream thoughts.

The analysis of this dream should be continued here. With the inquest of the Professor there is connected the recollection of an index (published in Latin during my time) of the university students; also of my course of studies. The five years provided for the study of medicine were as usual not enough for me. I worked along unconcernedly in the succeeding years; in the circle of my acquaintances I was considered a loafer, and there was doubt as to whether I would "get through." Then all at once I decided to take my examinations; and I got "through," in spite of the postponement. This is a new confirmation of the dream thoughts, which I defiantly hold up to my critics: "Even though you are unwilling to believe it, because I take my time, I shall reach a conclusion (German Schluss, meaning either end or conclusion, inference). It has often happened that way."

In its introductory portion this dream contains several sentences which cannot well be denied the character of an argumentation. And this argumentation is not at all absurd; it might just as well belong to waking thought. In the dream I make sport of the communication of the Common Council, for in the first place I was not yet in the world in 1851, and in the second place, my father, to whom it might refer, is already dead. Both are not only correct in themselves, but coincide completely with the arguments that I should use in case I should receive a communication of the sort mentioned. We know from our previous analysis that this dream has sprung from deeply embittered and scornful dream thoughts; if we may assume further that the motive for censorship is a very strong one, we shall understand that the dream activity has every reason to create a flawless refutation of a baseless insinuation according to the model contained in the dream thoughts. But analysis shows that in this case the dream activity has not had the task of making a free copy, but it has been required