chapter 5 of dreams psychology this is a
librivox recording all librivox
recordings are in the public domain for
more information or to volunteer please
visit librivox.org reading by Robyn
Cotter Toronto Ontario March 2007 dream
psychology by Sigmund Freud
translated by MD eater'
section 5 sex in dreams the more one is
occupied with the solution of dreams the
more willing one must become to
acknowledge that the majority of the
dreams of adults treat of sexual
material and give expression to erotic
wishes only one who really analyzes
dreams that is to say who pushes forward
from their manifest content to the
latent dream thoughts can form an
opinion on this subject never the person
who is satisfied with registering the
manifest content as for example naaku in
his works on sexual dreams
let us recognize at once that this fact
is not to be wondered at but that it is
in complete harmony with the fundamental
assumptions of dream explanation no
other impulse has had to undergo so much
suppression from the time of childhood
as the sex impulse in its numerous
components from no other impulse have
survived so many and such intense
unconscious wishes which now act in the
sleeping State in such a manner as to
produce dreams in dream interpretation
the significance of sexual complexes
must never be forgotten nor must they of
course be exaggerated to the point of
being considered exclusive of many
dreams it can be ascertained by a
careful interpretation that they are
even to be taken by sexually in as much
as they result in an irrefutable
secondary interpretation in which they
realize homosexual feelings that is
feelings that are common to the normal
sexual activity of the dreaming person
but that all dreams are to be
interpreted by sexually seems to me to
be a generalization as in demonstrable
as it is improbable which I should not
like to support above all I should not
know how to dispose of the apparent fact
that there are many dreams satisfying
other than in the widest sense erotic
needs as dreams of hunger thirst
convenience etc likewise the similar
assertions quote but behind every dream
one finds the death sentence
unquote Steagall and that every dream
shows quote a continuation from the
feminine to the masculine line unquote
Adler seemed to me to proceed far beyond
what is admissible in the interpretation
of dreams
we have already asserted elsewhere the
dreams which are conspicuously innocent
invariably embody course erotic wishes
and we might confirm this by means of
numerous fresh examples but many dreams
which appear indifferent in which would
never be suspected of any particular
significance can be traced back after
analysis to unmistakably sexual wish
feelings which are often of an
unexpected nature for example who would
suspect a sexual wish in the following
dream until the interpretation had been
worked out the dreamer relates between
two stately palaces stands a little
house receding somewhat whose doors are
closed
my wife leads me a little way along the
street up to the little house and pushes
in the door and then I slipped quickly
and easily into the interior of a
courtyard the slants obliquely upwards
anyone who has had experience in the
translating dreams well of course
immediately perceive the penetrating
into narrow spaces and opening locked
doors belong to the commonest sexual
symbolism and will easily find in this
dream a representation of attempted
question from behind between the two
stately buttocks of the female body the
narrow slanting passage is of course the
vagina the assistance attributed to the
wife of the dreamer requires the
interpretation that in reality it is
only consideration for the wife which is
responsible for the detention from such
an attempt moreover inquiry shows that
on the previous day a young girl had
entered the household of the dreamer who
had pleased him and who had given him
the impression that she would not be
altogether opposed to an approach of
this sort the little house between the
two palaces is
taken from a reminiscence of the Rajan
in Prague and thus points again to the
girl who was a native of that city if
with my patience I emphasized the
frequency of the Oedipus dream of having
sexual intercourse with one's mother I
get the answer I cannot remember such a
dream immediately afterwards however
there arises the recollection of another
disguised and indifferent dream which
has been dreamed repeatedly by the
patient and the analysis shows it to be
a dream of this same content that is
another Oedipus dream I can assure the
reader that veiled dreams of sexual
intercourse with the mother are a great
deal more frequent than open ones to the
same effect there are dreams about
landscapes and localities in which
emphasis is always laid upon the
assurance I have been there before in
this case the locality is always the
genital organ of the mother it can
indeed be asserted with such certainty
of no other locality that one has been
there before
a large number of dreams often full of
fear which are concerned with passing
through narrow spaces or with staying in
the water are based upon fancies about
the embryonic life about the sojourn in
the mother's womb and about the act of
birth the following is the dream of a
young man who in his fancy has already
while an embryo taken advantage of his
opportunity to spy upon an act to the
cushion between his parents
he is in a deep shaft in which there is
a window as in the Semmering tunnel at
first he sees an empty landscape through
this window and then he composes a
picture into it which is immediately at
hand and which fills out the empty space
the picture represents a field which is
being thoroughly Herald by an implement
and the delightful air the accompanying
idea of hard work and the bluish black
clods of Earth make a pleasant
impression he then goes on and sees a
primary school opened and he is
surprised that so much attention is
devoted in it to the sexual feelings of
the child which makes him think of me
here is a pretty water dream of a female
patient which was turned into
extraordinary account in the course of
treatment at her summer resort at the
lake she hurls herself into the dark
water at a place where the pale moon is
reflected in the water dreams of this
sort are parturition dreams their
interpretation is accomplished by
reversing the fact reported in the
manifest dream content thus instead of
throwing oneself into the water red
coming out of the water that is being
born the place from which one is born is
recognized if one thinks of the bad
sense of the French la lune the pale
moon thus becomes the white quote bottom
unquote popo which the child soon
recognizes as the place from which it
came now what can be the meaning of the
patient's wishing to be born at her
summer resort I asked the dreamer this
and she answered without hesitation
hasn't the treatment made me as though I
were born again
thus the dream becomes an invitation to
continue the Cure at this summer resort
that is to visit her there perhaps it
also contains a very bashful allusion to
the wish to become a mother herself
another dream of parturition with its
interpretation I take from the work of a
Jones quote she stood at the seashore
watching a small boy who seemed to be
hers wading into the water this he did
to the water covered him and she could
only see his head bobbing up and down
near the surface the scene then changed
to the crowded Hall of a hotel her
husband left her and she entered into
conversation with a stranger unquote the
second half of the dream was discovered
in the analysis to represent a flight
from her husband and the entering into
intimate relations with a third person
behind whom was plainly indicated mr.
X's brother mentioned in a former dream
the first part of the dream was a fairly
evident birth fantasy in dreams as in
mythology the delivery of a child from
the uterine waters is commonly presented
by distortion as the entry of the child
into water among many others the births
of adonis Osiris Moses and Bacchus are
well known illustrations of this the
bobbing up and down of the head in the
water that once recalled to the patient
the sensation of quickening she had
experienced in her only pregnancy
thinking of the boy going into the water
induced a reverie
in which she saw herself taking him out
of the water carrying him into the
nursery washing him and dressing him
and installing him in her household the
second half of the dream therefore
represents thoughts concerning the
elopement which belonged to the first
half of the underlying latent content
the first half of the dream correspond
it with the second half of the latent
content the birth fantasy in the first
half the child entered the water and
then his head bobbed in the underlying
dream thoughts first the quickening
occurred and then the child left the
water a double inversion in the second
half her husband left her in the dream
thoughts she left her husband another
partition dream is related by Abraham of
a young woman looking forward to her
first confinement from a place in the
floor of the house a subterranean canal
leads directly into the water
parturition path amniotic liquor she
lifts up a trap in the floor and there
immediately appears a creature dressed
in a brownish fur which almost resembles
a seal this creature changes into the
young brother of the dreamer to whom
she's always stood in maternal
relationship dreams of saving are
connected with parturition dreams to
save especially to save from the water
is equivalent to giving birth
when dreamed by a woman this sense is
however modified when the dreamer is a
man robbers burglars at night and ghosts
of which we are afraid before going to
bed into which occasionally even disturb
our sleep originated in one and the same
childish reminiscence they are the
nightly visitors who have awakened the
child to set it on the chamber so that
it may not wet the bed or have lifted
the cover in order to see clearly how
the child is holding its hands while
sleeping
I have been able to induce an exact
recollection of the nocturnal visitor in
the analysis of some of these anxiety
dreams the robbers were always the
father
the ghosts more probably corresponded to
feminine persons with white nightgowns
when one has become familiar with the
abundant use of symbolism for the
representation of sexual material and
dreams one naturally raises the question
whether there are not many of these
symbols which appear once and for all
with a firmly established significance
like the science and stenography and one
is tempted to compile a new dream book
according to the cypher method in this
connection it may be remarked that this
symbol does not belong peculiarly to the
dream but rather to unconscious thinking
particularly that of the masses and it
is to be found in greater perfection in
the folklore in the myths legends and
manners of speech in the proverbial
sayings and in the current witticisms of
a nation than in its dreams the dream
takes advantage of the symbolism in
order to give a disguised representation
to its latent thoughts among the symbols
which are used in this manner there are
of course many which regularly or almost
regularly mean the same thing only it is
necessary to keep in mind the curious
plasticity
of psychic material now and then a
symbol in the dream content may have to
be interpreted not symbolically
but according to its real meaning at
another time the dreamer owing to a
peculiar set of recollections may create
for himself the right to use anything
whatever as a sexual symbol though it is
not ordinarily used in that way
nor are the most frequently used sexual
symbols unambiguous every time
after these limitations and reservations
I may call attention to the following
emperor and empress king and queen in
most cases really represent the parents
of the dreamer the dreamer himself or
herself is the prince or princess all
elongated objects sticks tree trunks and
umbrellas on account of the stretching
up which might be compared to an
erection all elongated and sharp weapons
knives daggers and pikes are intended to
represent the male member
a frequent not very intelligible symbol
for the same is a nail file on account
of the rubbing and scraping little cases
boxes caskets closets and stoves
correspond to the female part the
symbolism of lock and key has been very
gracefully employed in Oland in his song
about the Griffin ever Steen to make a
common smutty joke the dream of walking
through a row of rooms is a brothel or
harem dream staircases ladders and
flights of stairs or climbing on these
either upwards or downwards are symbolic
representations of the sexual act smooth
walls over which one is climbing facades
of houses upon which one is letting
oneself down frequently under great
anxiety correspond to the erect human
body and probably repeat in the dream
reminiscences of the upward climbing of
little children on their parents or
foster parents
smooth walls are men often in a dream of
anxiety one is holding on firmly to some
projection from a house tables set
tables and boards are women perhaps on
account of the opposition which does
away with the bodily contours since bed
and board Mensa a thoris constitute
marriage the former are often put for
the latter in the dream and as far as
practicable the sexual presentation
complex is transposed to the eating
complex of articles of dress the woman's
hat may frequently be definitely
interpreted as the male genital in
dreams of men one often finds the cravat
as a symbol for the penis this indeed is
not only because cravats hang down long
and our characteristic of the man but
also because one can select them at
pleasure a freedom which is prohibited
by nature in the original of the symbol
persons who make use of this symbol in
the dream are very extravagant with
kravitz and possess regular collections
of them all complicated machines and
apparatus and dream are very probably
genitals in the description of which
dream symbolism shows itself to be as
tireless as the activity of wit
likewise many landscapes and dreams
especially with bridges or with wooded
mountains can be readily recognized as
descriptions of the genitals finally
where one finds incomprehensible
neologisms one may think of combinations
made up of components having a sexual
significance children also in the dream
often signify the genitals as men and
women are in the habit of fondly
referring to their genital organ as
their little one as a very recent symbol
of the male genital may be mentioned the
flying machine utilization of which is
justified by its relation to flying as
well as occasionally by its form to play
with a little child or to beat a little
one is often the dreams representation
of onanism a number of other symbols in
part not sufficiently verified are given
by steckel who illustrates them with
examples right and left according to him
or to be conceived in the dream in an
ethical sense quote the right way always
signifies the road to righteousness the
left the one to crime thus the left may
signify homosexuality incest and
perversion while the right signifies
marriage relations with a prostitute etc
the meaning is always determined by the
individual moral viewpoint of the
dreamer unquote relatives in the dream
generally play the role of genitals not
to be able to catch up with the wagon is
interpreted by steckel as regret not to
be able to come up to a difference in
age baggage with which one travels is
the burden of sin by which one is
oppressed also numbers which frequently
occur in the dream are assigned by
steckel a fixed symbolical meaning but
these interpretations seemed neither
sufficiently verified nor of general
validity
although the interpretation in
individual cases
generally be recognized as probable in a
recently published book by w steckel
dice Proctor traum which I was unable to
utilize there is a list of the most
common sexual symbols the object of
which is to prove that all sexual
symbols can be by sexually used he
states quote is there a symbol which
parentheses if in any way permitted by
the fantasy parentheses may not be used
simultaneously in the masculine and
feminine sense to be sure the clause in
parentheses takes away much of the
absoluteness of this assertion for this
is not at all permitted by the fantasy i
do not however think it's superfluous to
state than in my experience decals
general statement has to give way to the
recognition of a greater manifold --mess
besides those symbols which are just as
frequent for the male as for the female
genitals there are others which
preponderantly are almost exclusively
designate one of the sexes and there are
still others of which only the male or
only the female signification is known
to use long firm objects and weapons as
symbols of the female genitals or hollow
objects chests pouches as symbols of the
male genitals is indeed not allowed by
the fancy it is true that the tendency
of the dream and the unconscious fancy
to utilize the sexual symbol by sexually
betrays an archaic trend for in children
a difference in the genitals is unknown
and the same genitals are attributed to
both sexes these very incomplete
suggestions may suffice to stimulate
others to make a more careful collection
I shall now add a few examples of the
application of such symbolisms and
dreams which will serve to show how
impossible it becomes to interpret a
dream without taking into account the
symbolism of dreams and how imperative
ly it obtrude z-- itself in many cases
one the Hat is a symbol of a man of the
male genital a fragment from the dream
of a young woman who suffered from
agoraphobia on account of a fear of
temptation quote I am walking in the
street in summer I wear a straw hat of
peculiar shape the middle piece of which
is bent upwards and the side pieces of
which hang downwards the description
became here obstructed and in such a
fashion that one is lower than the other
I am cheerful and in a confidential mood
and as I pass a troupe of young officers
I think to myself none of you can have
any designs upon me unquote as she could
produce no associations to the Hat I
said to her the Hat is really a male
genital with its raised middle piece and
the two downward hanging side pieces I
intentionally refrained from
interpreting those details concerning
the unequal downward hanging of the two
side pieces although just such
individuality in the determinations lead
the way to the interpretation I
continued by saying that if she only had
a man with such a virile genital she
would not have to fear the officers that
is she would have nothing to wish from
them for she is mainly kept from going
without protection and company by her
fancies of temptation this last
explanation of her fear I had already
been able to give her repeatedly on the
basis of other material
it is quite remarkable how the dreamer
behaved after this interpretation
she was drew her description of the Hat
and claimed not to have said that the
two side pieces were hanging downwards I
was however too sure of what I had heard
to allow myself to be misled and I
persisted in it she was quiet for a
while
and then found the courage to ask why it
was that one of her husband's testicles
was lower than the other and whether it
was the same in all men with this the
peculiar detail of the Hat was explained
and the whole interpretation was
accepted by her the Hat symbol was
familiar to me long before the
patient-related this dream from other
but less transparent cases I believe
that the Hat may also be taken as a
female genital to the little one as the
genital to be run over as a symbol of
sexual intercourse another dream of the
same agoraphobic patient quote her
mother sends away her little daughter so
that she must go alone she rides with
her mother to the railroad and sees her
little one walking directly upon the
tracks so that she cannot avoid being
run over she hears the bones crackle
from this she experiences a feeling of
discomfort but no real horror she then
looks out through the car window to see
whether the parts cannot be seen behind
she then reproaches her mother for
allowing the little one to go out alone
unquote analysis it is not an easy
matter to give here a complete
interpretation of the dream it forms
part of a cycle of dreams and can be
fully understood only in connection with
the others for it is not easy to get the
necessary material sufficiently isolated
to prove the symbolism
the patient at first finds that the
railroad journey is to be interpreted
historically as an allusion to a
departure from a sanatorium for nervous
diseases with the superintendent of
which she naturally was in love her
mother took her away from this place and
the physician came to the railroad
station and handed her a bouquet of
flowers on leaving she felt
uncomfortable because her mother
witnessed this all much here the mother
therefore appears as a disturber of her
love affairs which is the role actually
played by this strict woman during her
daughter's girlhood the next thought
referred to the sentence quote she then
looks to see whether the parts can be
seen behind unquote in the dream facade
one would naturally be compelled to
think of the parts of the little
daughter run over and ground up the
thought however turns in quite a
different direction she recalls that she
once saw her father in the bathroom
naked from behind she then begins to
talk about the sex differentiation and
asserts that in the man the genitals can
be seen from behind but in the woman
they cannot in this connection she now
herself offers the interpretation that
the little one is the genital her little
one she has a four-year-old daughter her
own genital shear approaches her mother
for wanting her to live as though she
had no genital and recognizes this
reproach in the introductory sentence of
the dream the mother sends away her
little one so that she must go alone in
her fantasy going alone on the street
signifies to have no man and no sexual
relations quoi equals to go together and
this she does not like according to all
her statements she really suffered as a
girl on account of the jealousy of her
mother because she showed a preference
for her father the little one has been
noted as a symbol for the male or the
female genitals by steckel who can refer
in this connection to a very widespread
usage of language the deeper
interpretation of this dream depends
upon another dream of the same night in
which the dreamer identifies herself
with a brother she was a tomboy and was
always being told that she should have
been born a boy this identification with
the brother shows with special clearness
that the little one signifies the
genital the mother threatened him/her
with castration which could only be
understood as a punishment for playing
with the parts and the identification
therefore shows that she herself had
masturbated as a child though this fact
she now retained only in memory
concerning her brother an early
knowledge of the male genital which she
later lost
she must have acquired at that time
according to the assertions of this
second dream moreover the second dream
points to the infantile sexual theory
that girls originate from boys through
castration after I had told her of this
childish belief she had once confirmed
it with an anecdote in which the boy
asks the girl was it cut off to which
the girl replied no it's always been so
the sending away of the little one of
the genital in the first dream therefore
also refers to the threatened castration
finally she blames her mother for not
having been born a boy that being run
over symbolizes sexual intercourse would
not be evident from this dream if we
were not sure of it from many other
sources three representation of a
genital by structures stairways and
shafts dream of a young man inhibited by
a father complex quote he is taking a
walk with his father in a place which is
surely the Prater for the rotunda may be
seen in front of which there is a small
front structure to which is attached a
captive balloon the balloon however
seems quite collapsed his father asks
him what this is all for he surprised at
it but he explains it to his father they
come into a court in which lies a large
sheet of tin his father wants to pull
off a big piece of this but first looks
around to see if anyone is watching he
tells his father that all he needs to do
is to speak to the watchman and then he
can take without any further difficulty
as much as he wants to from this court a
stairway leads down into a shaft the
walls of which are softly upholstered
something like a leather pocketbook at
the end of this shaft there is a longer
platform and then a new shaft begins
analysis this dream belongs to a type of
patient which is not favourable from a
therapeutic point of view they follow in
the analysis without offering any
resistances whatever up to a certain
point but from that point on they remain
almost inaccessible this dream he almost
analysed himself the rotunda he said is
my genital the captive balloon in front
is my penis about the weakness of which
I have worried we must however interpret
in greater detail the rotunda is the
buttock which is regularly associated by
the child with the genital the smaller
front structure is the scrotum in the
dream his father asks him what this saw
for that is he asks him about the
purpose and arrangement of the genitals
it is quite evident that this state of
affairs should be turned around and that
he should be the questioner as such a
questioning on the side of the Father
has never taken place in reality we must
conceive the dream thought as a wish or
take it conditionally as follows if I
had only asked my father for sexual
enlightenment the continuation of this
thought we shall soon find in another
place the court in which the tin sheet
is spread out is not to be conceived
symbolically in the first instance but
originates from his father's place of
business for discretionary reasons I've
inserted the tin for another material in
which the father deals without however
changing anything in the verbal
expression of the dream the dreamer had
entered his father's business and had
taken a terrible dislike to the
questionable practices upon which profit
mainly depends hence the continuation of
the above dream thought if I had only
asked him would be he would have
deceived me just as he does his
customers for the pulling off which
serves to represent commercial
dishonesty the dreamer himself gives a
second explanation
namely onanism this is not only entirely
familiar to us but agrees very well with
the fact that the secrecy of onanism is
expressed by its opposite why one can do
it quite openly it moreover agrees
entirely with our expectations that the
onanist ik activity is again put off on
the father just as was the questioning
in the first scene of the dream the
shaft he had once interprets as the
vagina by referring to the soft
upholstering of the walls that the act
of coition in the vagina is described as
it going down instead of in the usual
way as it going up I have also found
true in other instances the details that
at the end of the first shaft there is a
longer platform and then a new shaft he
himself explains biographically he had
for some time consorted with women
sexually but have been given it up
because of inhibitions and now hopes to
be able to take it up again with the aid
of the treatment the dream however
becomes indistinct toward the end and to
the experienced interpreter it becomes
evident than in the second scene of the
dream the influence of another subject
has begun to assert itself in this his
father's business and his dishonest
practices signify the first vagina
represented as a shaft so that one might
think of a reference to the mother for
the male genital symbolized by persons
and female by a landscape
dream of a woman of the lower-class
whose husband is a policeman reported by
B Danner then someone broke into the
house and anxiously called for a
policeman but he went with two tramps by
mutual consent into a church - which led
a great many stairs behind the church
there was a mountain on top of which a
dense forest the policeman was furnished
with a helmet of gorget and a cloak the
two vagrants who went along with the
policeman quite peaceably had tied to
their loins sack like aprons a road led
from the church to the mountain this
road was overgrown on each side with
grass and brushwood which became thicker
and thicker
as it reached the height of the mountain
word spread out into quite a forest five
a stairway dream reported and
interpreted by Otto rank for the
following transparent pollution dream I
am indebted to the same colleague who
furnished us with the dental irritation
dream I am running down the stairway in
the stair house after a little girl whom
I wish to punish because she has done
something to me at the bottom of the
stairs someone held a child for me a
grown-up woman I grasp it but do not
know whether I have hit it for I
suddenly find myself in the middle of
the stairway where I practice coitus
with the child in the air as it were it
is really no coitus I only rub my
genital on her external genital and in
doing this I see it very distinctly as
distinctly as I see her head which is
lying sideways during the sexual act I
see hanging to the left and above me
also as if in the air two small pictures
landscapes representing a house on a
green on the smaller one my surname
stood in the place where the painter
signature should be it seemed to be
intended for my birthday present a small
sign hung in front of the pictures to
the effect the cheaper pictures could
also be obtained
I then see myself very indistinctly
lying in bed just as I had seen myself
at the foot of the stairs and I'm
awakened by a feeling of dampness which
came from the pollution interpretation
the dreamer had been in a bookstore on
the evening of the day of the dream
where while he was waiting he examined
some pictures which were exhibited which
represented motives similar to the dream
pictures he stepped nearer to a small
picture which particularly took his
fancy in order to see the name of the
artist which however was quite unknown
to him later in the same evening in
company he heard about a bohemian
servant girl who boasted that her
illegitimate child was made on the
stairs the dreamer inquired about the
details of this unusual occurrence and
learned that the servant girl went with
her lover to the home of her parents
where there was no opportunity for
sexual relations and that the excited
man performed the act on the stairs in
witty allusion to the mischievous
expression used about wine adulterers
the dreamer remarked the child really
grew on the cellar steps these
experiences of the day which are quite
prominent in the dream content were
readily reproduced by the dreamer but he
just as readily reproduced an old
fragment of infantile recollection which
was also utilized by the dream the stair
house was the house in which he had
spent the greatest part of his childhood
and in which he had first become
acquainted with sexual problems
in this house he used among other things
to slide down the banister stride which
caused him to become sexually excited in
the dream he also comes down the stairs
very rapidly so rapidly that according
to his own distinct assertions he hardly
touched the individual stairs but rather
flu or slid down as we used to say upon
reference to this infantile experience
the beginning of the dream seems to
represent the factor of sexual
excitement in the same house and in the
adjacent residence the dreamer used to
play pugnacious games with the
neighboring children in which he
satisfied himself just as he did in the
dream if one recalls from Freud's and
investigation of sexual symbolism that
in the dream stairs or climbing stairs
almost regularly symbolizes coitus the
dream becomes clear its motive power as
well as its effect as is shown by the
pollution is of a purely libidinous
nature sexual excitement became aroused
during the sleeping State in the dream
this was represented by the rapid
running or sliding down the stairs and
the sadistic thread and this is on the
basis of the pugnacious playing
indicated in the pursuing and overcoming
of the child the libidinous excitement
becomes enhanced and urges to sexual
action represented in the dream by the
grasping of the child and the conveyance
of it to the middle of the stairway up
to this point the dream would be one of
pure sexual symbolism and obscure for
the unpracticed dream interpreter but
this symbolic gratification which would
have ensured undisturbed sleep was not
sufficient for the powerful libidinous
excitement
the excitement leads to an orgasm and
thus the whole stairway symbolism is
unmasked as a substitute for coitus
Freud lay stress on the rhythmical
character of both actions as one of the
reasons for the sexual utilization of
the stairway symbolism and this dream
especially seems to corroborate this for
according to the Express assertion of
the dreamer the rhythm of sexual act was
the most pronounced feature in the whole
dream still another remark concerning
the two pictures which aside from their
real significance also have the value of
V builder literally woman pictures but
idiomatically women this isn't once
shown by the fact that the dream deals
with the big and a little picture just
as the dream content presents a big
grown-up and a little girl the cheap
pictures could also be obtained points
to the prostitution complex just as the
dreamer surname in the little picture
and the thought that it was intended for
his birthday point to the parent complex
to be born on the stairway to be
conceived in coitus the indistinct final
scene in which the dreamer sees himself
on the staircase landing lying in bed
and feeling wet seems to go back into
childhood even beyond the infantile
onanism and manifestly has its prototype
and similar pleasurable scenes of
bedwetting 6 a modified stare dream to
one of my very nervous patients who is
an abstainer whose fancy was fixed on
his mother and who repeatedly dreamed of
climbing stairs accompanied by his
mother i once remarked that moderate
masturbation would be less harmful to
him than enforced abstinence this
influence provoked the following dream
his piano teacher reproaches him for
neglecting his piano playing and for not
practicing the etude of motion and
Clemente's gratis odd par nessam in
relation to this he remarked that the
gratis is only a stairway and that the
piano itself is only a stairway as it
has a scale it is correct to say that
there is no series of associations which
cannot be adapted to the representation
of sexual facts I conclude with the
dream of a chemist a young man who has
been trying to give up his habit of
masturbation by replacing it with
intercourse with women preliminary
statement on the day before the dream he
had given a student instruction
concerning green yards reaction in which
magnesium is to be dissolved and
absolutely pure ether under the
catalytic influence of iodine two days
before there had been an explosion in
the course of the same reaction in which
the investigator had burned his hand
dream one he is to make phenyl magnesium
bromide he sees the apparatus with
particular clearness but he has
substituted himself for the magnesium he
is now in a curious swaying attitude he
keeps repeating to himself this is the
right thing it is working my feet are
beginning to dissolve and my knees are
getting soft then he reaches down and
feels for his feet and meanwhile he does
not know how he takes his legs out of
the crucible and then again says to
himself that cannot be yes it must be so
it has been done correctly then he
partially awakens and repeats the dream
to himself because he wants to tell it
to me he is distinctly afraid of the
analysis of the dream he is much excited
during this semi sleeping state and
repeats continually fennel fennel too he
is in with his whole family at half past
11 he is to be at the chaton thor for a
rendezvous with a certain lady but he
does not wake up until half past 11 he
says to himself it is too late now when
you get there it will be half past
of the next instant he sees the whole
family gathered about the table his
mother and the servant girl with the
soup tureen with particular clearness
then he says to himself well if we are
eating already I certainly can't get
away analysis he feels sure that even
the first dream contains a reference to
the lady whom he is to meet at the
rendezvous the dream was dreamed during
the night before the expected meeting
the student to whom he gave the
instruction is a particularly unpleasant
fellow he had said to the chemist that
isn't right because the magnesium was
still unaffected and the latter answered
as though he did not care anything about
it it certainly isn't right he himself
must be the student he is as indifferent
towards his analysis as the student is
towards his synthesis the he in the
dream however who accomplishes the
operation is myself how unpleasant he
must seem to me with his indifference
towards the success achieved moreover he
is the material with which the analysis
synthesis is made for it is a question
of the success of the treatment the legs
in the dream recall an impression of the
previous evening he met a lady at a
dancing lesson whom he wished to conquer
he pressed her to him so closely that
she once cried out after he had stopped
pressing against her legs he felt her
firm responding pressure against his
lower thighs as far as just above his
knees that the place mentioned in the
dream in this situation then the woman
is the magnesium in the retort which is
at last working he is feminine towards
me as he is masculine towards the woman
if it will work with the woman the
treatment will also work feeling and
becoming aware of himself in the region
of his knees refers to masturbation
and corresponds to his fatigue if the
previous day the rendezvous had actually
been set up for half-past eleven his
wish to oversleep and to remain with his
usual sexual objects that is with
masturbation corresponds with his
resistance end of section five