A nightmare whose meaning has been interpreted rightly ceases to be a nightmare. It disappears, or rather, is replaced by an obvious wish-fulfilment dream of the same import, which does not disturb sleep.
The same modification is observable in recurrent dreams which, while not burdened with anxiety, may have puzzled us and created a certain apprehension.
Insight into our own dreams enables us to release more completely the unconscious cravings which it is the mission of sleep to free from the repressions of waking life.
The technique of dream interpretation is unfortunately, like every detail of the psychoanalytic technique, very slow and at times discouraging. The layman trained by quack literature to expect quick results, is apt to appear scornful when a conscientious analyst, asked to interpret offhand an apparently simple dream, refuses to perform that task and confesses that he does not know the meaning of it.
When little Anna Freud dreamt that she was feasting on all sorts of dainties, no elaborate technique was needed to ferret out the enigma of such a vision. When Ferenczi’s patient, however, saw herself strangling a white dog, the wish-fulfilment formula, applied indiscriminately, would have given poor results.
To the patient, the white dog symbolized a snarling woman with a very pale face.
Dream interpretation must never be attempted without the dreamer’s assistance.
Snakes are almost always sexual symbols, but if on the day preceding the dream the subject was frightened by a snake or killed one or played with one, we should require a good deal of other evidence before we could safely assert that a snake dream on that night indicated fear, desire or repression of sexual cravings.
A tooth pulling dream related by a subject who expects to go through the ordeal of dental extraction should not be hastily admitted to be a symbolical dream.
Even apparently obvious dreams may assume an entirely different complexion when we inquire into the associations which every detail of them conjures up from the subject’s unconscious.