Freud - Complete Works (194 page)
¹
Cf. ‘
Frauenzimmer’
[literally ‘women’s
apartment’, commonly used in German as a slightly derogatory
word for ‘woman.’]
On Dreams
1096
Some symbols are universally
disseminated and can be met with in all dreamers belonging to a
single linguistic or cultural group; there are others which occur
only within the most restricted and individual limits, symbols
constructed by an individual out of his own ideational material. Of
the former class we can distinguish some whose claim to represent
sexual ideas is immediately justified by linguistic usage (such,
for instance, as those derived from agriculture, e.g.
‘fertilization’ or ‘seed’) and others whose
relation to sexual ideas appears to reach back into the very
earliest ages and to the most obscure depths of our conceptual
functioning. The power of constructing symbols has not been
exhausted in our own days in the case of either of the two sorts of
symbols which I have distinguished at the beginning of this
paragraph. Newly discovered objects (such as airships) are, as we
may observe, at once adopted as universally available sexual
symbols.
It would, incidentally, be a
mistake to expect that if we had a still profounder knowledge of
dream-symbolism (of the ‘language of dreams’) we could
do without asking the dreamer for his associations to the dream and
go back entirely to the technique of dream-interpretation of
antiquity. Quite apart from individual symbols and oscillations in
the use of universal ones, one can never tell whether any
particular element in the content of a dream is to be interpreted
symbolically or in its proper sense, and one can be certain that
the
whole
content of a dream is not to be interpreted
symbolically. A knowledge of dream-symbolism will never do more
than enable us to translate certain constituents of the
dream-content, and will not relieve us of the necessity for
applying the technical rules which I gave earlier. It will,
however, afford the most valuable assistance to interpretation
precisely at points at which the dreamer’s associations are
insufficient or fail altogether.
On Dreams
1097
Dream-symbolism is also
indispensable to an understanding of what are known as
‘typical’ dreams, which are common to everyone, and of
‘recurrent’ dreams in individuals.
If the account I have given in
this short discussion of the symbolic mode of expression in dreams
appears incomplete, I can justify my neglect by drawing attention
to one of the most important pieces of knowledge that we possess on
this subject. Dream-symbolism extends far beyond dreams: it is not
peculiar to dreams, but exercises a similar dominating influence on
representation in fairy-tales, myths and legends, in jokes and in
folk-lore. It enables us to trace the intimate connections between
dreams and these latter productions. We must not suppose that
dream-symbolism is a creation of the dream-work; it is in all
probability a characteristic of the unconscious thinking which
provides the dream-work with the material for condensation,
displacement and dramatization.¹
¹
Further information on dream-symbolism may
be found in the works of early writers on dream-interpretation,
e.g. Artemidorus of Daldis and Scherner (1861), and also in my own
Interpretation of Dreams
(1900
a
), in the mythological
studies of the psycho-analytic school, as well as in some of W.
Stekel’s writings (e.g. 1911).
On Dreams
1098
XIII
I lay no claim to having thrown
light in these pages upon
all
the problems of dreams, nor to
having dealt in a convincing way with those that I
have
discussed. Anyone who is interested in the whole extent of the
literature of dreams may be referred to a work by Sante de Sanctis
(
I sogni
, 1899); and anyone who wishes to hear more detailed
arguments in favour of the view of dreams which I myself have put
forward should turn to my volume
The Interpretation of
Dreams
, 1900. It only remains for me now to indicate the
direction in which my exposition of the subject of the dream-work
calls for pursuit.
I have laid it down as the task
of dream-interpretation to replace the dream by the latent
dream-thoughts, that is, to unravel what the dream-work has woven.
In so doing I have raised a number of new psychological problems
dealing with the mechanism of this dream-work itself, as well as
with the nature and conditions of what is described as repression;
on the other hand I have asserted the existence of the
dream-thoughts - a copious store of psychical structures of the
highest order, which is characterized by all the signs of normal
intellectual functioning, but is nevertheless withdrawn from
consciousness till it emerges in distorted form in the
dream-content. I cannot but assume that thoughts of this kind are
present in everyone, since almost everyone, including the most
normal people, is capable of dreaming. The unconscious material of
the dream-thoughts and its relation to consciousness and to
repression raise further questions of significance to psychology,
the answers to which must no doubt be postponed until analysis has
clarified the origin of other psychopathological structures, such
as hysterical symptoms and obsessional ideas.
1099
THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Forgetting, Slips of the Tongue, Bungled Actions, Superstitions and Errors
(1901)
Nun ist die Luft von solchem Spuk so voll,
Dass niemand weiss, wie er ihn meiden soll.
Faust
, Part II, Act V, Scene 5
Now fills the air so many a haunting shape,
That no one knows how best he may escape.
(Bayard Taylor’s translation)
1100
Intentionally left blank
The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life
1101
CHAPTER I
THE
FORGETTING OF PROPER NAMES
In the 1898 volume of the
Monatschrift
für Psychiatrie und Neurologie
I published under the title
of ‘The Psychical Mechanism of Forgetfulness’ a short
paper the substance of which I shall recapitulate here and take as
the starting-point for more extensive discussions. In it I applied
psychological analysis to the frequent circumstance of proper names
being temporarily forgotten, by exploring a highly suggestive
example drawn from my self-observation; and I reached the
conclusion that this particular instance (admittedly commonplace
and without much practical significance), in which a psychical
function - the memory - refuses to operate, admits of an
explanation much more far-reaching than that which the phenomenon
is ordinarily made to yield.
If a psychologist were asked to
explain why it is that on so many occasions a proper name which we
think we know perfectly well fails to enter our heads, he would,
unless I am much mistaken, be satisfied with answering that proper
names succumb more easily to the process of being forgotten than
other kinds of memory-content. He would bring forward the plausible
reasons why proper names should thus be singled out for special
treatment, but would not suspect that any other conditions played
their part in such occurrences.
My close preoccupation with the
phenomenon of names being temporarily forgotten arose out of my
observation of certain characteristics which could be recognized
sufficiently clearly in individual cases, though not, it is true,
in all of them. These are cases in which a name is in fact not only
forgotten
, but
wrongly remembered
. In the course of
our efforts to recover the name that has dropped out, other ones -
substitute names
- enter our consciousness; we recognize
them at once, indeed, as incorrect, but they keep on returning and
force themselves on us with great persistence. The process that
should lead to the reproduction of the missing name has been so to
speak
displaced
and has therefore led to an incorrect
substitute. My hypothesis is that this displacement is not left to
arbitrary psychical choice but follows paths which can be predicted
and which conform to laws. In other words, I suspect that the name
or names which are substituted are connected in a discoverable way
with the missing name: and I hope, if I am successful in
demonstrating this connection, to proceed to throw light on the
circumstances in which names are forgotten.
The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life
1102
The name that I tried without
success to recall in the example I chose for analysis in 1898 was
that of the artist who painted the magnificent frescoes of the
‘Four Last Things’ in Orvieto cathedral. Instead of the
name I was looking for -
Signorelli
- the names of two other
painters -
Botticelli
and
Boltraffio
- thrust
themselves on me, though they were immediately and decisively
rejected by my judgement as incorrect. When I learnt the correct
name from someone else, I recognized it at once and without
hesitation. The investigation into the influences and the
associative paths by which the reproducing of the name had been
displaced in this way from
Signorelli
to
Botticelli
and
Boltraffio
led to the following results
(
a
) The reason why
the name
Signorelli
was lost is not to be found in anything
special about the name itself or in any psychological
characteristic of the context into which it was introduced. The
name I had forgotten was just as familiar to me as one of the
substitute names - Botticelli - and much
more
familiar than
the other substitute name - Boltraffio - about whose owner I could
scarcely produce any information other than that he belonged to the
Milanese school. Moreover the context in which the name was
forgotten seemed to me harmless and did not enlighten me further. I
was driving in the company of a stranger from Ragusa in Dalmatia to
a place in Herzegovina: our conversation turned to the subject of
travel in Italy, and I asked my companion whether he had ever been
to Orvieto and looked at the famous frescoes there, painted
by . . .
The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life
1103
(
b
) Light was only thrown
on the forgetting of the name when I recalled the topic we had been
discussing directly before, and it was revealed as a case in which
a topic that has just been raised is disturbed by the preceding
topic
. Shortly before I put the question to my travelling
companion whether he had ever been to Orvieto, we had been talking
about the customs of the Turks living in
Bosnia
and
Herzegovina
. I had told him what I had heard from a
colleague practising among those people - that they are accustomed
to show great confidence in their doctor and great resignation to
fate. If one has to inform them that nothing can be done for a sick
person, their reply is: ‘
Herr
: what is there to be
said? If he could be saved, I know you would have saved him.’
In these sentences we for the first time meet with the words and
names
Bosnia
,
Herzegovina
and
Herr
, which can
be inserted into an associative series between
Signorelli
and
Botticelli-Boltraffio
.
(
c
) I assume that the
series of thoughts about the customs of the Turks in Bosnia, etc.,
acquired the capacity to disturb the next succeeding thought from
the fact that I had withdrawn my attention from that series before
it was brought to an end. I recall in fact wanting to tell a second
anecdote which lay close to the first in my memory. These Turks
place a higher value on sexual enjoyment than on anything else, and
in the event of sexual disorders they are plunged in a despair
which contrasts strangely with their resignation towards the threat
of death. One of my colleague’s patients once said to him:
‘
Herr
, you must know that if
that
comes to an
end then life is of no value.’ I suppressed my account of
this characteristic trait, since I did not want to allude to the
topic in a conversation with a stranger. But I did more: I also
diverted my attention from thoughts which might have arisen in my
mind from the topic of ‘death and sexuality.’ On this
occasion I was still under the influence of a piece of news which
had reached me a few weeks before while making a brief stay at
Trafoi
. A patient over whom I had taken a great deal of
trouble had put an end to his life on account of an incurable
sexual disorder. I know for certain that this melancholy event and
everything related to it was not recalled to my conscious memory
during my journey to Herzegovina. But the similarity between
‘Trafoi’ and ‘Boltraffio’ forces me to
assume that this reminiscence, in spite of my attention being
deliberately diverted from it, was brought into operation in me at
the time.
The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life
1104
(
d
) It is no longer
possible for me to take the forgetting of the name
Signorelli
as a chance event. I am forced to recognize the
influence of a
motive
in the process. It was a motive which
caused me to interrupt myself while recounting what was in my mind
(concerning the customs of the Turks, etc.), and it was a motive
which further influenced me so that I debarred the thoughts
connected with them, the thoughts which had led to the news at
Trafoi, from becoming conscious in my mind. I wanted, therefore, to
forget something; I had
repressed
something. What I wanted
to forget was not, it is true, the name of the artist at Orvieto
but something else - something, however, which contrived to place
itself in an associative connection with his name, so that my act
of will missed its target and I forgot
the one thing against my
will
, while I wanted to forget
the other thing
intentionally.
The disinclination to remember was aimed against
one content; the inability to remember emerged in another. It
would obviously be a simpler case if disinclination and inability
to remember related to the same content . Moreover the substitute
names no longer strike me as so entirely unjustified as they did
before the matter was elucidated: by a sort of compromise they
remind me just as much of what I wanted to forget as of what I
wanted to remember; and they show me that my intention to forget
something was neither a complete success nor a complete
failure.
(
e
) The way in which the
missing name and the repressed topic (the topic of death and
sexuality, etc., in which the names of Bosnia, Herzegovina and
Trafoi appeared) became linked is very striking. The
schematic diagram which I have inserted at this point, and which is
repeated from the 1898 paper, aims at giving a clear picture of
this.
Fig. 1.
The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life
1105
The name
Signorelli
has
undergone a division into two pieces. One of the pairs of syllables
(
elli
) recurs without alteration in one of the
substitute names: while the other, by means of the translation of
Signor
into
Herr
, has acquired a numerous and
miscellaneous set of relations to the names contained in the
repressed topic, but for this reason is not available for
reproduction. The substitute for it has been arrived at in a way
that suggests that a displacement along the connected names of
‘
Her
zegovina and
Bo
snia’ had taken place,
without consideration for the sense or for the acoustic demarcation
of the syllables. Thus the names have been treated in this process
like the pictograms in a sentence which has had to be converted
into a picture-puzzle (or rebus). Of the whole course of events
that have in ways like these produced the substitute names instead
of the name
Signorelli
no information has been given to
consciousness. At first sight it seems impossible to discover any
relation between the topic in which the name
Signorelli
occurred and the repressed topic which preceded it in time, apart
from this recurrence of the same syllables (or rather sequence of
letters).
Perhaps it is not superfluous to
remark that the conditions which psychologists assume to be
necessary for reproducing and for forgetting, and which they look
for in certain relations and dispositions, are not inconsistent
with the above explanation. All we have done is, in certain cases,
to add a
motive
to the factors that have been recognized all
along as being able to bring about the forgetting of a name; and,
in addition, we have elucidated the mechanism of false recollection
(paramnesia). These dispositions are indispensable to our case as
well, in order to make it possible for the repressed element to get
hold of the missing name by association and draw it with itself
into repression. In the case of another name with more favourable
conditions for reproduction this perhaps would not happen. It is
probable indeed that a suppressed element always strives to assert
itself elsewhere, but is successful in this only when suitable
conditions meet it half way. At other times the suppression
succeeds without any functional disturbance, or, as we can justly
say, without any
symptom
.
The conditions necessary for
forgetting a name, when forgetting it is accompanied by paramnesia,
may then be summarized as follows: (1) a certain disposition for
forgetting the name, (2) a process of suppression carried out
shortly before, (3) the possibility of establishing an
external
association between the name and the element
previously suppressed. The difficulty of fulfilling the last
condition need probably not be rated very high, since, considering
the low standards expected of an association of this kind, one
could be established in the great majority of cases. There is,
however, the profounder question whether an external association
like this can really be a sufficient condition for the repressed
element’s disturbing the reproduction of the lost name -
whether some more intimate connection between the two topics is
required. On a superficial consideration one would be inclined to
reject the latter demand, and accept as sufficient a temporal
contiguity between the two, even if the contents are completely
different. On close enquiry, however, one finds more and more
frequently that the two elements which are joined by an external
association (the repressed element and the new one) possess in
addition some connection of content; and such a connection is in
fact demonstrable in the
Signorelli
example.
